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Help Daniel & Kaity Rebuild their Health and Home

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Kaity and I need help to remediate our home from toxic mold. We bought our home with the specific hope that it would be mold free, after all it is only 5 years old. But, unfortunately there was a significant hidden mold problem in the attic and basement that has spread through the whole house through the HVAC.

This is coming off the back of 6 long years of our lives being dominated by chronic illness. Kaity and I both have Lyme disease, mold toxicity, and many other health issues. In the last few years, life has been doctor visits, misdiagnoses, multiple clinics, isolation, and just trying to heal. We have spent thousands of dollars on medical treatments, but this burden is out of our reach.

Here’s Kaity’s story:

“Whenever I am asked how I am doing I often find myself at a loss for words. To be honest, it’s a bit overwhelming to try and explain what we have been through in the past five years. The grief and pain of an extended period of suffering can often feel that way, overwhelming. There have been more than a few times over the past five years I have been brought to rock bottom only to have the ground ripped from underneath me. The grief and pain of all that has been lost has often left me wanting to crawl to the darkest, deepest hole of the earth to get away from. The type of pain that is uncomfortable to be confronted with because there is no easy answer or quick fix.

So to answer the question: it’s complicated. I am better in some ways and worse in others. I will attempt to explain to the best of my ability:

Starting in 2019 I began experiencing extreme anxiety, depression, debilitating fatigue, migraines that were beyond description, and a whole list of new symptoms started out mild and worsened very quickly after suffering a miscarriage. The symptoms caused me to have to quit my full time job and I became a full time patient. During this time I had to rely heavily on my husband and family to care for my basic needs. I have very few clear memories of this time but I recall often thinking “I had no idea this level of misery was even possible to experience” There is no way to exaggerate this time and how miserable I was. My symptoms got so severe that I often struggled to walk from the couch to the fridge to get food or even stand long enough to cook an egg. It wasn’t for almost a full year, and seeing nearly 10-12 different doctors and specialists that I was finally diagnosed with PANS, Lyme, bartonella, babesia, mycoplasma, hashimoto, mast cell activation syndrome. Since then my list of diagnoses has grown but you get the point. It’s messy, not easily treated. Relieved to have an answer but overwhelmed with the amount of work I knew it would take to experience relief, we started to chip away at these issues in treatment.

As we began to tackle all of these issues, Daniel started to exhibit similar symptoms that I had been having, but to a lesser extent. Thankfully, because we recognized these symptoms, he was diagnosed quickly and his treatment began helping. That was until about January 2021 when our symptoms started to worsen and we began to even develop new ones. We have found there was a leak in a pipe in our attic that had caused toxic mold to grow. Thankfully, our landlord was quick to hire a mold company to attempt to fix the issue but as we have learned since, there were still spores in the house that were affecting us. This temporary relief from symptoms all came back just a few months later as the mold came back. We had a very generous and gracious family member who had a newer home with no water/mold issues and a lot of extra space and invited us to stay with them. While we were thankful for the safe space to heal, this marked a time of “starting over for us” as we had to get rid of a lot of our belongings that were contaminated with mold. Not easy to do financially for two people with lots of medical bills on one income.

Once we moved in many of my symptoms worsened but we couldn’t figure out what it was. We had checked the home very thoroughly for mold issues and knew it wasn’t that. One night after living there a few months I began to experience muscle spasms/seizing to the point where I could not stand up. It turns out I had developed a severe EMF (electromagnetic field) sensitivity. This amounted to me not even being about to be in a building with electricity without seizing. I was able to tolerate it somewhat if I turned the electricity completely off while inside our home. This was obviously not a long term solution. Many nights we slept in our car parking away from the city to experience relief from the EMF exposure or sleeping in a tent in parks in the middle of winter.

After making due for a while we had some very generous friends who let us boondock on their property while we looked for a more long term solution of having our own home that was low in mold and also away from the city so that I would be less affected by EMFs. Because of budget restraints we knew we didn’t have the funds to build something brand new so we did our best to really search over each home looking for mold and passed on many homes because of mold issues. We finally found a home that we felt was safe; it was a newer build, not a lot of visible issues. Unfortunately before we moved in we found through deeper testing, that there was a considerable amount of toxic mold spores. We knew no matter what house we bought we would need to invest a little bit of time and money in making sure the house was safe for us because we are more sensitive, but we were shocked at the extent of the remediation that needs to be done and the overall expense.

This is where we are today. We bought the house in January but have still not been able to move in because of the mold. We are asking for financial help to remediate the mold and move in so we can finally be in a space that will allow us to heal.

A question I often get asked is “So what are your symptoms now?”. This is also complicated to answer because it can look different daily. I often compare it to playing a whack-a-mole game day to day with different symptoms popping up. Every day is a new challenge of navigating a myriad of symptoms. Including but not limited to depression, anxiety, brain fog, digestive issues, Mast Cell (MCAS) flare ups. My energy is still a big struggle, I need at least 10 hours of sleep at night but often sleep around 12-14 hours and take about a 2-3 hour nap during the day. I am able to care for myself in ways I wasn’t able to in the beginning of this health journey. I can make my own food, take walks, do housework and some other light activities. But it’s not uncommon for me to have days where I can’t do anything or where all my symptoms “flare up”. I would say my biggest obstacle is the EMF sensitivity. I am not able to be “in town” for very long or go into many buildings. This is obviously very limiting when it comes to wanting to work and/or socialize. I hope and long for total health but am aware complete healing may just not be possible for me, but I do believe a level of healing in which I can live a mostly normal life, is obtainable for me so I continue to try new things and research new treatments and work with my doctor on this goal.

We are thankful that Daniel has been able to maintain a level of health that he can continue working. But even still he often struggles with symptoms from lyme disease and mold illness such as fatigue, brain fog, anxiety and various body pains. His health is stronger than it was and once we can get settled into our home we hope to continue his treatment further to hopefully reach total remission.

The next question I get asked normally is “have you tried such and such treatment” I/we have seen many doctors/specialists.Tried many things,not everything, but many things. Antibiotics, diet, herbals, oxygen therapy, ozone therapy, IV therapies, neural therapy, neurofeedback therapy, heavy metal cleanse, trauma therapy, somatic practices/DNRS, so many supplements and medications to even count of remember All of these things have been helpful but never the answer or sometimes resolving one issue while another or completely new symptom would pop up. So we continue to try new things and research ways of helping us manage.

While this journey has been incredibly difficult I will end by saying how incredibly thankful and fortunate I feel for so many reasons. I am so thankful for the people I have met along the way who have let me know I am not alone in my experiences and that there is hope for healing. It means more than you could ever know if you have ever shared your story of chronic illness with me or in any way publically. I am so thankful for my husband who has been and is the most patient and selfless man and there has not been a single day I have not thanked God that I married him. I truly would not have made it this far without him. I am so thankful for our families and friends who have fought for us, provided for us financially, taking me to SO many doctor’s appointments, with meals, with a compassionate ear or just helping us not feel alone.

Most of all I’m incredibly thankful for my faith in God and His faithfulness towards me. My faith has been so important to me since I was little and still is. But I have to admit this season has left me often feeling hurt, angry, and frustrated at God. I’m thankful to have learned of God that He welcomes my hurt, my lament and I have often found words for my pain through books in the bible like the Psalms or the book of Job. Things are broken, our bodies are broken, our minds are broken. But we lament not without knowing God will ultimately bring FULL restoration and FULL redemption. But not yet. I am thankful that over the past few years I’ve felt His care, provision and presence. And I’ve learned that He is a good God. Not in a - “that’s what a Christian should say kind of way”, but in a way that I have found Him to be faithful and good.

It’s incredibly humbling to always be the one “in need”. But one thing I’ve learned along the way is that there are people who are willing to help you just have to ask. That’s why we are doing a GoFundMe, asking those who have wanted to help and have not known how, or those unaware there was a need. So it’s with a lot of humility that we ask- we need help.”


How the money will be spent:
Ripping out all flooring, carpets, bathroom vents, toilets, some drywall, some subfloors, all basement insulation, some HVAC ducting, any exposed porous surface things like curtains, etc. Remove anything that can hide mold and where remediation cannot adequately address. Friends and family are doing this but supplies, dumpster rental, etc. will be needed.
  • Cost: $1,000 – GOAL MET!
Remediating the attic. Removing all insulation, vacuuming every square inch of everything (rafters, roof, vents, studs, joists, ceiling, all), spraying a hydrogen-peroxide solution on every square inch of everything (some areas 2-3 times with a day in between each application). Scrubbing/vacuuming all areas with visible mold. Hand wiping every square inch of everything with disinfectant wipes that can only be used for one wipe each surface. Then a final vacuum with the HEPA-filter vacuum. Yes, it’s very labor intensive and must be done right.
  • Cost: $11,000 GOAL MET!
Remediating the basement. Same procedure.
  • Cost: $8,000 GOAL NOT YET MET!
Remediating main floor. Same procedure.
  • Cost: $8,000
Remediating upstairs. Same procedure.
  • Cost: $8,000
Replace furnace and some ducting, clean and remediate all air ducts.
  • Cost: $9,800
Replace main floor flooring that had to be torn out
  • Cost: $4,500
Replace upstairs carpet
  • Cost: $6,000
Replace attic insulation
  • Cost: $2,000
Replace refrigerator, toilets, bathroom fans. The fridge had mold underneath, all 3 toilets had mold growth in the tanks, and the fans need to be replaced so they don’t blow mold spores around.
  • Cost: $2,000
Repair walls damaged/removed for remediation
  • Cost: $1,500
Pre/post mold inspections and lab samples. Much of this has already occurred. We’ve already had over $8,500 worth of thorough inspections and lab samples. We expect another $1,500 worth to verify that the remediation was successful.
  • Cost: $10,000

Since GoFundMe takes a certain percentage of each donation, you may prefer to contribute another way:

Send via Paypal to @daniellivingston7

Send via Venmo to @Kaity-Vance

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Donations 

  • Anonymous
    • $200
    • 5 mos
  • David L Faught
    • $100
    • 6 mos
  • Chelsea Jost
    • $25
    • 6 mos
  • Anonymous
    • $500
    • 6 mos
  • Anonymous
    • $6,000 (Offline)
    • 6 mos
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Organizer

Daniel Livingston
Organizer
Peoria, IL

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