To all the Photochoppers, Joke Crackers and Funny Story Tellers

[TheSuzie]

To all the Photochoppers, Joke Crackers and Funny Story Tellers in OT and Bass Humor:

Thanks! I really need the laughs these days and you folks have given me a lot of them. I have been really ill and just found out that I am becoming homeless again and also loosing a lot of my few remaining possessions. Also I was informed a couple of days ago that my prescription coverage had been canceled and I will be loosing part of my health coverage.

The fun stuff here has really helped to break up my bleak mood and given me some much needed distraction.

Thanks Again,
Susan

[fourstringdrums]

Originally Posted by TheSuzie

To all the Photochoppers, Joke Crackers and Funny Story Tellers in OT and Bass Humor:

Thanks! I really need the laughs these days and you folks have given me a lot of them. I have been really ill and just found out that I am becoming homeless again and also loosing a lot of my few remaining possessions. Also I was informed a couple of days ago that my prescription coverage had been canceled and I will be loosing part of my health coverage.

The fun stuff here has really helped to break up my bleak mood and given me some much needed distraction.

Thanks Again,
Susan

So sorry to hear that Susan. I hope things start to look up.

[sneha1965]

Hang in there Susan. I'm glad we were able to bring some fun to you during a hard time.

[MakiSupaStar]

Hang tough sister.

[totallyfrozen]

Tough times come...but they also go. Remind yourself --> "even this too shall pass".
Prayin' for you.

[TheSuzie]

Thanks for all your good wishes and prayers. When the dust settles, I will be able to talk about this more. FTM it looks like someone has offered me a short term place to stay, hopefully in a place that does not make me too ill. I will try to keep this thread posted.

Thanks Again,
Susan

[PersonalTraynor]

Good luck to you. Hope it turns around.

If it was me, i'd be on the first bus to Canada!

Stay tough!

[TheSuzie]

Can't be on a bus unless maybe if a wore a pretty heavy duty respirator the whole time. After years of searching I finally found a respirator that does not make me sick, a life changing event for me.

As far as the story behind the story, I am just going to cut and paste and edit a post I made to another thread as I am too sick, tired and foggy to compose anythign else..........

I am in the middle of a "mold walk-out" from a house I was renting. This is my second one in five years. I will again loose a lot of my possessions. The things that can be reasonably cleaned and saved require a lot of time and effort.

The data on genetic testing (HLA-DR haplotyping) that has been performed on thousands of individuals indicates that about 24% of the population is susceptible to a chronic inflammatory response syndrome when exposed to the mix of organisms that typically grow in water damaged buildings. Once a susceptible person crosses the line into the illness, they tend to get sicker more quickly with each additional exposure. Note that once the illness appears, it is an immuniological illness and not really in the domain of toxicology. Linear dose reaponse does not apply and the threshold of the tipping point gets lower and lower.

The toxicologists who write papers saying that mold won't hurt people are looking for rats to die or have lung tissue damage. They never look at the innate immute parameters, they never look for the absent hypothalamic neuropeptides, they do not look at the altered bloodflow in the brain. Many are also on the payroll of insurance companies and/or are paid defense witnesses.

My lab tests stand out like a sore thumb. So does the MRI spectroscopy of my brain. My life sucks due to this illness though I am making the best of it. Bottom line:

1. Avoid water damage to your home like the plague. Take precautions that may seem a bit like overkill in order to have a safe place for you and your family.

2. If things get wet dry them fast. Remove damaged and wet materials where needed. Do not close up an area like a ceiling or wall too quickly after it gets wet. Make usre it is really thoroughly dry before finishing.

3. If you are in doubt about a building, the EPA/Environmental Relative Mold Index is a relatively affordible DNA based test that may help shed some light on the situation, - mycometrics.com - If you think you might or know you do have a mold related illness, test the dwelling BEFORE you move in. I screwed up that one this time around and I am paying for it in every way you can imagine.

4. For information on mold related illness - survivingmold.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Doctor's letter about the house I am in the process of leaving...

Well Susan,

That ERMI report is not good and your dwelling is not mold safe. That is the worst ERMI report I have ever seen! Most reports come out with a score around 2-3 or less. That would be a safe house for someone who didn't have mold-related illness. A score of 14.96 means you have 1 x 10 to the 12th power more mold DNA than someone who has a score of 3. That's one trillion, or one million times one million, times more mold DNA.

If you have been diagnosed with a "mold-related illness" or a "biotoxin-related illness" or CIRS-WDB, you need to get out of this dwelling right away. It would be a death trap to you. You will never get well in a structure with that score.

There is no way you can live in this structure if you carry any of those diagnoses.

Sincerely,
xxxxxxxxxx, MD


Peace,
S

[TheSuzie]

I just found out tonight that my nephew is developing the illness. I'm betting he has the same gene that I got from my mother.

[Eric Perry]

Very very sorry to read all this, Suzie... Try and keep a positive outlook!

[Vorago]

Damn, hang in there!

[Phalex]

Whoa! I hope things turn around for you!

[TheSuzie]

Thanks for your thoughts guys. I have some really bad genetics WRT this illness. Not the worst of the worst but near that end of the scale. I hope my nephew has a better combination so he does not get as sick and responds better to treatment if I can manage to get him some medical help.

Thanks Again - Back to the move out.

[Relic]

Wow Suzie, this is a tough situation! I wish you all the best and I hope that everything works out for you and for your nephew as well.

[Chunk-O-Funk]

There is hope you manage this thing.

Fome one sick guy to TheSuzie.

[Joe Gress]

Best of luck to you Susan!

[TheSuzie]

Another doctor just told me to chuck everything including my laptop. Now I am confused and totally messed up.

[fourstringdrums]

Originally Posted by TheSuzie

Another doctor just told me to chuck everything including my laptop. Now I am confused and totally messed up.

Why? Do you mind if I ask about your situation?

[TheSuzie]

tl;dr - Mold and other organisms that grow in water damaged buildings make me extremely ill to the point that my life sucks because of it. I have really bad genetics for this. I got stuck in a moldy rental house and have to deal with the aftermath

Longer story -

Well, I have talked to some other people including a mycologist I know and it seems that there are some gray areas about what I can keep and clean versus what must be tossed. With my first moldy house, almost everything I owned was dumpstered and my gear was sold off cheaply as a lot to a dealer who cleaned it up except for some pieces that I gave to a friend who helped me deal with some of that crap. I did manage to get someone to save my CD collection, strip them of their boxes and inserts and deliver the CDs to be cleaned and stored for me. Sadly, I lost hundreds of records, many rare and now expensive.

At that point I had not had medical treatment and was not very functional at all, extremely weak with damage to my coordination and cognition that has only partially improved with treatment. I also got much sicker if i went to my house. I knew I was really ill. I had such a long list of symptoms, that most doctors who do not understand biotoxin related illnesses would have likely just reached for the psych meds. You know, the "Nobody can really have that many symptoms" sort of attitude.

That this house is moldy is not debatable because it is making me sicker with an obvious increase in symptoms, especially recently. That is why I had the place tested. Of course testing is not perfect but the sort of score this place got leaves no doubt that it is contaminated. With my sort of genetics, that is not acceptable nor is it useful for me to bring cross contamination into a new living environment.

This whole situation also explains why treatments that are proven to help this illness were not leaving me with durable gains. My labs would improve but then get bad again quickly, typical of someone who is ill and being re-exposed. DOH!

I don't have much stuff, mostly survival sort of things because I was homeless and living on public lands most of the time since 2007 until I rented this house which was advertised as "safe".or at least "safer". The house did not set off my chemical sensitivity which is an extreme symptom I have related to the damage to the hypothalamus that occurs in many mold patients. The house didn't have visible mold or smell musty. My mistake was in not having the place mold tested up front.

Anyway, the process of tossing or cleaning and bagging in multi layers for storage and sorting later is ongoing and slow because I am sick and tired. I will tear off the outer layer of bags after I transport, so I don't bring anything into my friend's garage. I had a lot of bedding and such from this house out in the car for a long time and the car has not been cleaned yet.

Objects like a cd are easy to clean, a no brainer to save, non porous etc. Something like a laptop is a real problem. A million places for stuff to hide and not something I can toss into a washing machine.

My instruments that have had a first pass of cleaning are sitting outside wrapped in multiple layers of plastic bags and nothing else. Don't really care about them so much ATM, possessions become a burden in this situation.

Dang, if someone else had not already written it, I would think I am writing War and Mold. edited - or is that Mold and Peace?

Peace,
S

[Pilgrim]

Hang in there! I see your info shows you as AZ and Boston - I gotta think that the drier the climate, the better for you!