Leviticus 14:45 "A house desecrated by mildew, mold, or fungus would be a defiled place to live in, so drastic measures had to be taken."
A rather QUICK explanation/update on the latest greatest Reeves' family Adventure:
We moved back into our town-home about 2 months or 8 weeks ago. We used a special cleaner called Thieves on EVERYTHING in the house, we mopped, we HEPA vacuumed the whole house, we repainted the entire house with allergy-free/toxic-free paint, we wiped down walls, bathrooms, shelves, beds...you name it. We then did this crazy thing that an Author/Environmental Hygienist recommended as a last ditch effort (remember we had already spent THOUSANDS having the home professionally re-mediated of the MILLIONS of mold spores/fiberglass etc found in our town home), we taped off every A/C vent in the home but one, we used dryer duct work to vent that one duct out our Bedroom window and attempted to "flush" out the A/C system. We had previously left the A/C off for weeks prior to this, and yes, it was a wee bit hot in here (80-90 degrees.) We tried to spend the night away or days away as often as we could, just hoping the less we were here the less sick we might get IF we were going to get sick again. We truly HOPED we had done enough and would be safe.
However, in the last three weeks we have all stayed here 'full-time'. Here are some of the things that have slowly happened: My nose has begun to run like a faucet every morning and then throughout the day. My fingers itch. My hormones have gone wacky (ask Ray:)). My 'itchy/sore' ears have come back (a main sign many w/fungal issues have). Bella's joint pain has come back. Ava is now limping and favoring one leg. Some of Levi's autistic quirky symptoms are coming back (much of autism is a result of toxic/fungal over growth, etc...). Kaitlyn's eczema is trying to come back. While none of these alone are that big of a deal, HOWEVER; together they were unfortunately showing me ever so slowly...we have a problem. The final straw was last week. We all caught a small head cold (no biggie), but instead of getting well (like the normal folk) my kids got worse, some way worse and within 4 days Levi's croupy-cough changed to the violent coughing fits (where he pukes after-wards) had come back with a vengeance. This past week he has been diagnosed with a major asthma flare-up, double ear infection AND double sinus (mold) infections. *If you check out Mayo's study you will see MOST sinus infections are FUNGAL!
Here is the bottom line for us: this town-home is not worth our children's lives!
We thought we could try to live here while the legal-battle goes on and while we remediated our home, alas, we cannot! We have a peace that we have done all we can do here and even tho' we LOVE this town home it is just not worth the price we may be paying with our health and/or lives.
Wanted to send out a quick picture for those of you who have asked questions and/or do not understand the seriousness of this issue.
We all know kids who have peanut allergies (the life threatening kind.) You know that the parents have to go to great lengths to ensure there is not so much as a trace of peanut in their life. They have been told, 'Hey now that your kid had this reaction, future ones can kill them'. They carry epi-pens, they read labels voraciously, they get letters sent out to their kid's schools that there can be no more PB & J sandwiches, crackers, etc... at school. They can't even eat things that have been made in a factory where peanuts were stored, processed, etc... Being in the same room with someone who has had a Reeces PB cup is all it may take to kill them! The same is true for people with Bee-stings, reactions to penicillin, etc...
Our bodies are fearfully and wonderfully made and they have the amazing ability to recognize the enemy. Well, in our case the enemy appears to be Molds, fiberglass and now potential Chemicals. I'm sure you've heard of MCS - or Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, people are actually getting Disability for this! So, for us, just replace the word 'Peanuts' with the above enemies. Another thing our bodies can do is 'recognize' a place that has made us sick before. It's crazy! ....
So, for us as we have lived back here this time we have been slowly getting sick...until our immune systems were lowered by the cold and BAM it sent our bodies, especially Levi's, straight back to where it was at the height of our sickness last year. This is the SCARY part to us: Levi didn't have to get sick 6 or 7 times to end up ER bound, he got sick once!!! We may never know what exactly is in this house we are hyper-sensitive to, we believe it is the A/C system being contaminated and without basically stripping this house down to nothing and rebuilding...we are NOT going to get it clean. (OH, and they haven't even checked behind our back walls yet where the moisture readings are ABOVE the safe limit. And on and on, the craziness goes!)
PLEASE know this as you hear about our story: there is NOTHING fun about this, we aren't making this choice to just have a lil excitement, we do not like our life being in constant turmoil, we do not thrive on this! It hurts my heart as the mom to be faced with this AGAIN. I do not enjoy lying awake at night wondering if 'that coughing fit' was Levi's last (as in he died). I know Ray is considering/praying about moving us to Arizona, where the climate is dry. THIS is not an easy situation to be in. And it will now haunt us forever. We may have to rent 7 different homes before we find one we can safely live in. Oh and as far as moving out right now. We don't actually have the funds to do that. Ryland has sucked all of our savings and credit down the drain this past year. So, when I say we need to move, I mean...we need to move, but God will have to provide the way!
Ray is excited about being in that place of total dependency on God! I am having break-downs every few hours, but still trust my God!
Please take a moment to read these excerpts:
"Once the patient has become hypersensitive to the mold in their environment, they have also become overly reactive to all molds in their life including those they breathe elsewhere, those they eat and those that may be colonizing their tissues. Relief of symptoms can only come with a significant reduction in exposure including a mold free diet , avoidance of mold-ridden environments and treatment of mold colonization. Some mold colonizations are well known, such as athlete's foot, vaginal yeast infections, ringworm, excessive dandruff, toenail fungus, etc. But molds are opportunistic and can become established on any tissue that has been previously damaged. This would include the sinuses of a patient who has had a sinus infection, the lungs of a patient with asthma, the nose of a patient with nasal congestion and the gastrointestinal tract of patients who have had chronic indigestion or abdominal discomfort. The patients' healthy, reactive immune system can prevent the mold from invading surrounding tissues and causing infection. However, it is not able to remove the mold from the mucosal or skin surfaces. The colonization continues, the patient continues to form immune complexes with the mold antigens, the overload continues, and the patient grows sicker."
And...
"Therapy is based on avoidance. The contaminated environment must be remediated or abandoned, a mold-free diet is very helpful, and colonization must be eliminated by the appropriate use of antifungals. The most common colonization sites are the nose, nasopharynx and esophagus."
Thanks again, we are working through this with the Lord's help. Covet your prayers...
