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Help the Brockintons heal after toxic mold.

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A little over a month ago we noticed that our fridge was leaking from the bottom. A repair guy came and moved the refrigerator and discovered the floor underneath it had rotted away. Immediately after that visit, everyone started getting sick. It started with my husband getting an eye infection, the rest of us got sinus infections.


We stayed in a hotel that night and haven’t slept in our house since Feb. 8. One of our sons has been extremely ill for about 5 years and now we know what probably generated or at least exasperated his problems . He is diagnosed with PANS/PANDAS. I encourage you to Google and YouTube search “PANS/PANDAS stories,” where you can learn more about how it affects a child, but basically, it is brain encephalitis caused by a virus, bacteria, mold, or allergies. The care load for caring with a child with PANS has been compared to 24/7 care of someone with dementia or alzeheimer's.


He currently can’t go to school, his separation and general anxiety are through the roof, he can’t go to sleep without medication, his mitochondria are impaired, he has insulin resistance, and he is in bed for usually 18 hours a day because of his general pain and acute belly pain.


The rest of the family has had weird health things: anxiety, depression, panic attacks, one of our children (brilliant and getting A's on tests) is failing classes because she can't focus enough to get homework done. My husband had constant eye infections, and he and one of our sons were getting unexplained migraines, I've had shooting pains in my breast for a year as well as the inability to gain muscle, exercise for more than 15 minutes, and urinary incontinence.


Three weeks ago, we got our ERMI mold test back (IF YOU SUSPECT MOLD- DO AN ERMI TEST and not an air test) and… it showed extreme levels of mold. There are about 30-40 species listed on the test and we have all but 3 of the species. For many of the species the levels were 1,000X above the normal level. Black mold and all its cousins… hiding somewhere in our home.


Fast forward a bit... we've spent the last month finding an IEP and a remediator that approaches mold removal from a health standpoint. We found an AMAZING husband and wife team that is fighting for us. They found several active leaks in our pipes, including one under the house in the crawl space in an area as far as possible from the crawl space door. We had no idea all these leaks existed because they were either underneath the house creating mold that got into the hvac or they were down a wall that had paneling over the drywall.


I want to be detailed in all of this because we have been fighting invisible monsters for so long and we had no clue. This mold has made our son severely disabled in several ways and majorly effected the rest of our family, and we had no visible or obvious signs until a few weeks ago.


In the last 4 weeks, we’ve blown through our savings, had to sell our stock, and maxed out two credit cards. The hotel is about $1,000 a week, which of course equals $4,000+ a month (on top of our mortgage). We’ve had to make doctor’s appointments ($500) to discuss detox protocols, we’ve had to hire plumbers, inspectors, mold lab tests. 


We have to throw away our 3 sofas and 9 mattresses, all of our pillows and down comforters, all thick coats, clothing, all baskets and natural fiber things, all upholstered furniture, all our rugs and carpeting and ditch our fridge/freezer and replace our hvac duct work downstairs.


Conservative cost estimates for housing replacements are more than $20,000 plus the hotel that we’ve already spent $4k on and will cost us another $4k for each additional month. It will cost we think about $10k-$15k just to remove all the mold and encapsulate the crawl space. Of this $40K-ish, insurance will max cover $5k because all of this is tied to toxic mold exposure and our policy only allows for $5k for mold related aspects.


In addition, they need to replace the floors in 2-3 rooms, gut 2 bathrooms and the sun room and do some sort of treatment to the walls. Some of this will be covered by insurance but we have no idea how much.


Additionally we have been told to expect additional medical expenses for our son of about $3,500. We have no idea what medical costs lie ahead for the rest of the family to be treated for mold toxicity. 


There's so much more to share, but this is long enough already. The bottom line is that we are a family that desperately loves Jesus and wants to glorify Him and do right by others. We are in crisis, and we need support. We are not asking others to carry a load we are not willing to carry ourselves; we just can no longer carry all of this, and we need help- and at the very least, so so much prayer.
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Here are some non-financial ways we need help:


+ We have to either pitch our possessions (those things that are porous) or wash every single item via a time consuming protocol outside on a sunny day and then take it to storage. Only one of us can do this at a time because the other parent is always with Isaiah at the hotel. We could use help cleaning items or taking things to storage or the dump.


+ We desperately need a mold free (this includes no water damage and no old carpet) place to live where Isaiah can heal while our house is remediated. The hotel we are in is perfect for our needs but it is the main financial strain that is causing us to financially be in crisis. 


+ Sam is going to get a travel nursing job to try and help make up for some of the money we've lost with the hotel and other unexpected costs thus far. Ashley needs help getting the kids to school on the days he works because one parent is always staying with Isaiah while the other one takes the other 4 kids to school. There is no just getting him in the car. If we can't get help with the transportation in the mornings the kids will have to miss school those days. 


+ We have the best friend ever that offered for us to stay in her condo in Boone during the kids spring break March 18-25 so we don't have to pay for the hotel that week. We can not bring our dog or cat though. We need someone to watch our chocolate lab and sweet tabby cat during that week (a friend is watching our cat right now but will be out of town that week and the dog has has been at the hotel with us). We already had to re-home one of our dogs because we couldn't find any temporary help.


+ Healthy allergen free dinners. I know this one is hard for people because our food allergies are are so annoying but I'll put it out there because I know there are some that like to show love in this way. There's a specific broth soup that Isaiah likes from Tuk Tuk restaurant that is really good for him- having that might be easy and would be a big blessing. 
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Donations 

  • Anonymous
    • $100 
    • 7 mos
  • Nancy Johnson
    • $50 
    • 7 mos
  • Cathy McNair
    • $50 
    • 7 mos
  • Sharon Worth
    • $200 
    • 7 mos
  • Claire Mozley
    • $50 
    • 7 mos
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Organizer

Ashley Brockinton
Organizer
Greer, SC

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