Give Nicole a safe home to recover

My name is Nicole.
For the last 20 years, I have been working in the entertainment
business making a modest living.
Some of my positions  have included working as a singer,
music television presenter and reporter, children's entertainer , radio
presenter and many more.
I mostly only sing now and most of time I am in a wig and costume
which helps hide the damage done from my illness.
I no longer do television work and nowadays I shy away from cameras.
I no longer have the energy to work as I once did either.

I have toxic mould(mold) poisoning from living in a rental unit that
wasn’t maintained properly.
I am chronically ill and homeless and I am unable to sue for
compensation because there are no laws in place that protect tenants
from this happening.
If it was a work place, I would have a case.
I am struggling to find somewhere safe for me to live to recover within my budget, so have tried to avoid water damaged and mouldy buildings as much as possible by mostly living in the country in my car.

This is my story.

In March 2014 I moved into a unit and was happy, healthy and self
sufficient.
When I left in February 2017 I was extremely ill, in a huge amount of
debt and homeless.

I lived in what I call the "house of tox" for 3 years.

 The house of tox was a water damaged building that had several issues, including black mould in the skylights of the bathroom and toilet, as
well as a huge crack in the shower floor that leaked into the sub floor of the building.

For 2 years I experienced odd health and dental issues and was
exhibiting behaviour patterns that were out of character, but I was still functioning reasonably well and still unaware what was causing these
problems.

In Feb/March 2016, I decided to try to clean the mould in the skylights that had been there since long before I moved in. I hadn't attempted to do so previously due to the height factor and the estate agent would
always comment on it at every inspection, so on that fateful day. I
 grabbed a mop and bucket gave it a go.
In sweat pants and a tank top, I stretched up high and scrubbed those
skylights with the mop and got more than 90% of it clean.
In doing so ,I inhaled, ingested and absorbed mycotoxins  and spores.
I literally had a mould shower.

This set off a chain of events that I could never have imagined possible and I have been living in a science fiction/horror movie ever since.

My skin condition (which remains undiagnosed) started within days of
the clean and my health suffered so severely that when I finally left that building almost a year later, I was barely able to function.
My once long hair was now short, my skin full of painful lesions, my
cognitive skills were those of a child, I had to use an asthma pump for
the first time in my life and I was in a permanent state of confusion due to brain fog.
My excellent memory was now a thing of the past and I would forget so much, even what I was saying mid way through a sentence.

An MRI revealed a brain lesion and a specialised scan that helps
diagnose people with my condition called a neuroquant scan, showed 3 areas of atrophy and 3 areas of hypertrophy.

3 areas of my brain were shrunken and 3 areas had swollen.

Chronic fatigue, ongoing dental issues and MRSA in my nose were just a few more of the many health issues that I developed from living in
that unit.

All of my belongings had to be thrown away due to the invisible
mycotoxins that would exacerbate my symptoms and my insurance
refused to pay me out. The financial ombudsman service ruled against me when I disputed it.

To be able to recover from toxic mould (mold) poisoning, you need to
either remove the source or remove yourself from the source.
I left the "house of tox" in February 2017. 
I had nowhere to go because I didn’t have the luxury of time to find a
new place, but I believed I was saving my life in leaving.

I now know, I saved my life by leaving.

After seeing more than 12 doctors that had no idea of this condition, I
finally found a mould literate doctor and I asked him if I was correct and had toxic mould poisoning and he said
"Without a doubt and you are lucky you're not in a wheelchair"
 He advised me to avoid mouldy buildings wherever possible until I  was well enough to build an immunity (or enough of one that my body could fight when I would become exposed)

22 months later, I can't find a safe building to live in on a limited budget therefore I am still homeless.

Basically, I have been poisoned.

I have a mould toxicity and when exposed to water damaged buildings,
it causes an inflammatory effect and depending on the severity, I can
start unravelling before your eyes, within a matter of minutes.
Sometimes those effects can last days or weeks or even months if I
have spent too long somewhere that is toxic to me. If my skin starts
reacting or my legs go wobbly or I get dizzy and nauseous or start
coughing like I am choking, I know to get out fast.
When my brain gets affected, I don't always pick up on that straight
away and the effects from that are truly terrifying.

Originally, I was making good progress in the first 6 months of leaving
the house of tox but since then, I have suffered several setbacks, the
last major one was at the extreme end of those effects and I once again got so sick, that my health deteriorated to close to what it was when I
left the house of tox and resulted in me losing even more hair and my
skin condition flaring up again.

 It has taken months to get to the point I am at now.

My wonderful friend Jen, came up with a back to basics theory and 
convinced me to stay in a tent in her back yard to see if it would help
me as well as me having a safe place to be.
 I was in no position to argue, I had no idea what I was going to do and
she put forward her argument to me in a way that made perfect sense
and I had nothing to lose, so in the middle of Winter, I headed off to
begin tent life.

Jen's idea was not only brilliant, it pretty much saved my life.

When I left the tent 2 months later I was a very different person from
the one that arrived on her doorstep and being a lot healthier, I set off
for the country in the hopes of finding a nice little place to continue
recovering believing the country air would help me to continue healing.
I was right about the country air, my skin has improved significantly and I no longer have bald patches on my head, but I haven't found that little place to call home and in between some couch surfing and Airbnb's, I
have spent most of my time in the country living in my car
(The "Minty Monty”)

I live in my car because it is a better alternative to living in an unsafe
building and regressing once more.
I have fought back from being bedridden and struggling to do the
simplest of tasks, to being almost zombie like twice now and I don't
believe I have the strength to fight it a third time.

I also know it is impossible for me to ever fully recover when I have no
stability and sleep unsafe.
 I have to constantly source new "safe" spots to sleep and try to access basic amenities we all take for granted on a daily basis.
Getting access to a shower is sometimes impossible to achieve.

Because of my illness, I am unable to  live or work just anywhere so
funds are limited.
Unfortunately, housing in my budget is generally unsuitable for me now I have this toxicity whereas once upon a time, I would never have
needed to spend even one night in a car because I could live in shabby
dwellings.

I get Newstart allowance, which pays very little and do some gigs when I can, which can exhaust me for days ,but I am grateful I am still able to
sing.
My voice is about the only thing the house of tox didn't take from me
and to be honest, if it did, I would have given up the fight long ago.

A lot of my money gets eaten up in petrol from constant moving around in my car.

My car is now my house, office and mode of transport which was
generously given to me by my parents (it was my dad's car) after a truck wrote mine off earlier this year.
The car has done almost 220,000 kms and will not last forever and
being it is my home as well, I am too scared to think what will happen
then.

Despite everything, I try my best to remain positive and because I work hard at pretending I am okay, it's often easy for people to forget just
how sick I am and how easily my health can turn if I am in the wrong
building. 

I have always said, I know I can beat this if I can just get into somewhere that I can be safe in for a few months or more and keep avoiding as
many buildings as possible, to reduce the toxicity enough and to
rebuild my own immunity, so that I can live a normal life once more.
I just haven’t been given the chance to try and eventually something
will give, our bodies can only fight so much.

 I have to keep having regular MRI scans for a brain lesion that is
undiagnosed but the reports all say low grade glioma cannot be
excluded.
This translates to a brain tumour and if it starts growing, I will have less than 7 years to live.
I have always believed the lesion to be from the mould poisoning and
believe I can fight that too, if only I can get into that safe place.
If I can't, eventually it will grow as my body can't heal and is too busy
fighting so much already.

My next MRI is due in next month.

I have been referred to the dental hospital for teeth implants.
When I lived in the house of tox, I had 2 teeth removed and I've had
another removed recently.
I also had a few root canals done but they're  not taking well and still
causing me a lot of pain.
The one root canal I had done years before the house of tox , had never had any issues, but it too will be being removed and replaced with an
implant thanks to the house of tox.
Because it is public dental, the waiting list is long but the cost will be
heavily discounted to what a private dentist charges.
I have never had so many dental issues, nor the level of
excruciating pain they've brought, in my life.

I have tried to access government services for homelessness, but
because there are so many Australians homeless every night
(around 120,000) the options offered, are rooming houses that are not only expensive, they have no guarantee of being safe for my condition
and caravan parks have huge waiting lists for cabins.
The rare ones that had something available, were unsuitable for my
condition.
Share housing is difficult for someone with my illness especially with
the risk of being exposed to contaminated furnishings. If I am having a
reaction, depending on the severity, it can be quite frightening for
others to witness and some people have become resentful and nasty
due to lack of understanding.
It always takes a few days to adjust to a new environment which can
result in me sleeping for 3 days and most people just don’t get it.

My goal is to try to raise enough money to make up the difference in
cost, so that I can afford to rent somewhere for at least 12 months that I will be safe in and finally be able to really start healing.
I also need to replace everything I owned, but am used to living with
virtually nothing so I can manage quite easily with just a few basics.
I would  like to invest in some good air purifiers as they really do
make a huge difference for someone with my condition.
I am also going to need to pay the discounted price for the dental
implants.

 Alternatively, I would like to raise enough money to buy another
vehicle that I can set up better for living in and that has less kms on it as I have no idea how long the “ Minty Monty” I currently live in and drive
is going to last.

If I can get a safe place to live and my theory is right and I can beat this
thing, I would like to focus on giving back and raising awareness of the
hidden dangers I knew nothing of, as well as the plight of the homeless and just how serious a problem it is in Australia.
Never in my wildest imagination would I have believed I could and have become, a homeless person in “the lucky country” let alone being
chronically ill and homeless.

Every day is a battle but as long as I keep making progress and moving
forward I will continue to fight with everything I have.
I am very grateful for the love and support I have received from friends and family (those that still talk to me) and appreciate anything you can do/give to help even if you can only share my story.

I would love more than anything to have a place to call home by
Christmas.

My goal for next year is to be healthy once more by the time KISS play
their final shows in Melbourne in November 2019.
I don’t have a ticket yet, but if I make it to November 2019, one way or
another, I will be there.
Knowing the tour is on, gives me the strength to keep fighting when I
have really bad days.
KISS ARMY forever.




Some  photos of life before the " House of Tox"






Some pics from my days as a music reporter on C31's Asylum TV

 

Here is of photo of me from 2015.

This one is a meet and greet with Ace Frehley ( former KISS guitarist)
I’d been up all night in excruciating pain with yet another mystery
dental issue (so many dental issues living there. My hair was still long
then.

Here's Ace and I just a few years earlier




Here are some photos from late 2016 early 2017 of my skin lesions.
They don't look as bad in these as they do in real life due to a really
crappy phone cam I had at the time.
It looks like someone put their cigarettes out on me



My hair when I left
The longest parts were only what you can see in the photo, the rest was shorter and I hated it.
I had no idea that my hair would become even shorter.


These ones are from June 2018 when I first went to stay in my friend
Jen’s backyard, my hair is even shorter with bald patches.

I have never had bad skin before and my hair has been long forever and it was devastating to lose my hair twice.
I still cry about my hair, and I hate that I’m still so sick that it hasn’t
grown back to an acceptable length.
I loathe having short hair.

To say my confidence and self esteem has suffered is an
understatement, but I don’t have the time to even address the
psychological issues ( their just the tip of the iceberg) that have come
with this illness.
I’m too busy trying to survive.

A wig and make up can do wonders.
Here is smoke and mirrors at the Gene Simmons/Ace Frehley concert in late August 2018.
Jen and I managed to get a hold of some tickets a couple of hours
before show time.
Gene must have had his radar on that night, because he singled me out several times during the night and gave me back some of my lost
confidence and the strength to keep going. He changed my life, it’s like he knew I needed him. I will never forget that night and will always be
grateful.
Once again the magic of KISS was doing it’s thing
Of course, I was laid out on Jen’s couch for a day after the show with a massive migraine, but it was worth it.

This photo was taken today December 9 2018
I’m still sick but my hair is growing, my skin is looking much better and
everyday I makes steps forward,  but it's not fast enough, nor can it be, given my living conditions. (The Minty Monty is in the background)

Because my brain doesn’t work like it once did, it has taken me ages
to write this, I am exhausted but I did it and that too is progress.
I apologize for the long read and I thank you, for reading it all.
I have only now just gotten to the point health wise, that I have been
able to keep  it under 3000 words as opposed to under 20,000 because I go around and around in circles.

My memory has made great improvements over the last few months
but is still nowhere near what it was. I will never take my memory for
granted again should it be like it was once more.

I am ok to live without the material items we all take for granted.
When you lose everything, you get used to having very little, but I
haven’t ever, gotten fully used to not having a home and I would really,
really like, to go home now.



Thank you all xo