e.m.claytor

I don’t know if I can appropriately put into words the amount of stress that I went through shortly after we were out of the mold house.  Our emotions were all over the place – relief, frustration, loss, grief, hope.  It tested our ability to experience opposite emotions at the same time.

But after we got rid of 90% of our belongings, we left the house behind us without a thought of regret. It was a disease, and we wanted no part of it any longer.

If you remember from Parts 1 and 2, we continued to be highly reactive any time we came into contact with mold or even mold spores. And by reactive I mean dried out throat, ears popping, vertigo and dizziness, nausea, visual disturbances, severe headaches, tremors, muscle weakness, electric shocks, confusion, difficulty speaking – it’s a bit ridiculous. The extent of these symptoms depended on the length of exposure and whether or not we immediately showered and washed our clothes after exposure. Often the symptoms would not resolve for hours.

So it’s understandable why we actively work to avoid these places and items. 

The first few weeks of September were great.  I started walking and was so relieved that I could finally exercise – I had never treasured the ability to walk and exercise before, but I did during that time. I was going to get healthier than I’d ever been. 

Everyone noticed a difference.  My boss remarked on the improvement in my energy and mood. It was shocking how sick I had been and how drastically I changed just by being out of that environment. 

And now looking back just a few months to those brief few weeks when I was getting my energy and vitality back, my heart actually feels like it could break because it was devastatingly short-lived.

Throughout this time, Daniel and I were experiencing significant and strange detox symptoms. We both broke out in large bumps with red circles around them – about the size of a half dollar. We would sweat a lot at night. I began having a persistent sore, itchy throat and was occasionally – brace yourselves – blowing black stuff out of my nose. I also kept feeling like I couldn’t blow my nose fully on my right side.

But these were minor issues that I could deal with, and I knew that they would be temporary as long as we could stay away from mold.

Occasionally, I would have a reaction in certain locations – restaurants, stores, and even at work.  They were replacing the HVAC unit in our building at work, and every once in a while I’d smell something musty and feel a slight reaction, but it would pass.

The last week of September, Daniel and I took a week long vacation to Panama City.  I had a light therapy intervention for mold before we left, and the practitioner warned me that I may blow black stuff out of my nose!  I wasn’t surprised at all considering I had already been experiencing that to some degree.

The trip was much needed.  Fortunately, we had no issue with the townhouse we stayed in (no mold!), but we did have to walk out of quite a few stores and restaurants. 

And I blew plenty of black stuff out of my nose.  It was amazing.

We returned home in high spirits.  My energy continued to climb, and I was excited to see how much more I would improve by the end of the year.

My hopes unfortunately came to a screeching halt four short days after being back from vacation.

During that week, they were getting ready to turn the air conditioning back on in our office suite.  The day that it kicked on, it was blowing full blast and didn’t let up.  By the end of the day, my head felt like it was going to explode. I had experienced a significant tremor throughout the day. And I had trouble thinking. 

“Surely this is just something chemical from the HVAC being installed,” I thought.  In a stupid display of optimism, I didn’t say anything for a few days thinking it would eventually “wear off”.

I was so very wrong.

Within one week, I was incredibly sick anytime I was in my office.  I began having electric shocks and nerve pain shooting down my ribs, and I had ice pick headaches on the right side of my head which I never had before.  I also went home each day with a terrible taste in my mouth and would spit up black stuff (like I had previously had in my nose) nearly every afternoon.

Soon after that I started having trouble breathing. After work, my O2 would be lower than normal for hours. I felt like I had asthma setting in.  I’d struggle to breathe some nights until 2:00 am.  It was at this point, I decided I couldn’t continue working in that office.

I had tried working in the conference room which was not quite as bad as my office, but no matter where I was in the building it seemed that within a few hours, I’d be having a full reaction.

There are far more details to this part of the story, but suffice it to say it was a struggle.  The stress I experienced during this situation seemed to intensify the reaction.

I was asked for an accurate diagnosis and documentation, so I found myself back in doctor’s offices despite the fact that my neurologist agreed that the mold was the likely culprit of the migraines and odd neurological issues just one month before. My general doctor advised staying out of the building for the time being. But I still needed additional documentation.

I was so sick, and I was so defeated that I was experiencing these symptoms once again. I had days when I couldn’t get out of bed. And I felt pulled to continue going to work and do my job despite the fact I got even sicker when I was there.

I finally got in to see an ENT at UAB which I was happy about since I was continuing to have trouble clearing my right nostril and feared I had a “fungal ball” (you can google this, but I warn you – the pictures are terrifying).

After a CT Scan of my face and an exam that could pass as torture, the doctor determined that I thankfully did not have a fungal ball, but I did have a polyp blocking most of my right nostril. He said this is common in mold exposure and commented that he had several patients whose symptoms resolved once they left the moldy buildings they worked in (all of them were school buildings). He prescribed a round of steroids and a nasal steroid flush — which he said was only a “temporary solution” — and against my better judgment, I decided to take it.

What followed was a nightmare for my body. At this point, I was advised to take my sick leave since I was unable to work in the building.  It was as if my body realized I was on “sick leave” and decided to take full advantage of the term.  I reacted poorly to the steroid and felt like I was dying for days.  During this time, the ENT also prescribed an antibiotic due to finding a bacterial infection in my nose.  I absolutely knew better than to take the drug Cipro, but I was already so sick from the steroids that I didn’t even realize what I was taking.

Within four days (of a 21 day round of Cipro!), I woke up with severe nerve pain throughout my back and ribcage, and I was convinced I must have shingles. My clothes hurt my skin. It felt like someone had set a fork on fire and repeatedly stabbed me with it. I knew that I had been through enough stress to have shingles, so I wouldn’t have been surprised, but when the pain began spreading through my torso and down my hips and legs, I realized this was not shingles but a severe reaction to the Cipro (also called being “floxxed”).

I made an appointment with the doctor and came off the drug immediately, but the damage had set in. I ended up with severe tendonitis in both knees.  I missed Thanksgiving because I couldn’t walk.  For nearly two weeks, the most I could do was walk to the bathroom.  Anytime I tried to get out, I would pay for it with two swollen inflamed knees.  Thankfully, I’m walking much better now. The tendonitis has mostly subsided, but I still can’t squat or bend my knees fully. 

Cipro injuries are not uncommon, and a lot are worse than my experience. A lot of people end up in a wheelchair or with severe neuropathy. Some have no issue until months later when they rupture a tendon (most of the time it’s the achilles). My doctor told me he thinks that my exposure to mold made me more susceptible to the Cipro injury – which makes sense because there’s no room left in my body for chemicals or toxins.

During the month of November, I was in bed 98% of the time. I was struggling to figure out a way to work.  They completed an air quality test, and the test revealed a high level of mold spores in my office; however, it fell within “normal range”.  There was also a particular type of mold spore at an elevated level (74%) in my office. But again this was “normal”. Unfortunately, my ability to sense mold spores is beyond normal, and having it blasted on top of me from the air vent for hours a day wasn’t an option. 

Again, there’s plenty more to this part of the saga. It’s been by far the most difficult part so far. I’ve cried so many tears over my health, not being able to walk, and feeling like I was getting so much better just to get blasted down and worse off than I was before. I’ve somehow become even more sensitive to mold. There are only a handful of buildings I can even walk in.

I resigned from my job at the end of December due to an inability to work in the environment.

So it’s 2020. I have no job, no home, very few possessions, and my body is struggling. I just found out I’m going to have to get rid of my keyboard and guitar, and that hurts (because apparently I have some time on my hands now to play). I’m not attached to much – but my instruments, my books and my art are painful to lose.

I’m experiencing a wonderful crisis. I honestly question who I am a lot of the time.

I’ve learned a lot. I learned to trust my instincts. I learned to put my health first. I learned to stand my ground. I learned what matters. I’m still learning.

I told Daniel the other day that maybe this is a clearing away of brush and weeds in our lives. If you plant a garden, you have to clear the field first.  I’m hoping what we’re experiencing is a clearing away of the things that no longer serve us, the things that tied us to toxic places and people, the things that keep us from growing, the things that keep us from life.  

Here’s to new life in 2020.

———–

One last note: Daniel and I went to New Mexico over Christmas in hopes that we would “dry out” and have some healing. For about 10 days, I was in a place where I felt human again. I felt like I could walk into any restaurant without fear. It wasn’t without incident. We found out that we still had a couple of pieces of clothing from the mold house (that had previously seemed fine) that suddenly made us both sick. We both threw away luggage, and came home with about half of what we took.

The trip was a window of hope. I felt alive again in New Mexico, and I know now I’m not broken forever.