Nix/Bush Family Fund
Donation protected
I met Amy and her beautiful baby girl Kylee about 8 years ago. They were neighbors of ours. I got to often babysit Kylee and loved her to pieces. As the years passed, Amy met the man of her dreams, Tom, and together they have a smart handsome little boy Sawyer who is now 2.5 yo. They live up north in Michigan now and are engaged to be married. I have been so happy for all of them! But recently some posts that my friend Amy was making started getting me worried. I found out that there was definitely something wrong! Here is some of her story!
Family Nightmare:
I apologize for my vague posts lately. I haven't really been able to find the right words for what is happening in my life. I'm still not sure I have it right. But I've had a few sweet concerned friends message me and it's exhausting telling my story over and over. I can't even stand it anymore. So here it is. I started getting sick around the end of September. Nothing too alarming, a tooth infection, followed by a bladder infection, and then a "staph infection", one after another. I was put on several antibiotics and seen multiple doctors. I'm kind of a trooper so those things were things I could deal with just fine. It was a little strange how they were right after another but I didn't think much of it. Then the kids started itching and feeling yucky. Kylee had headaches and sore legs. Sawyer seemed cranky and irritable. I got an awful rash and my "staph infection" was spreading. The doctors couldn't figure it out. I felt like I was getting worse and worse and started having some really scary odd symptoms. I was researching and researching and everyone was telling me to calm down, to not google, that I was stressing myself out, making myself sick. I didn't stop. I knew something was wrong and that something was wrong with the kids and I thought and thought and I realized eventually that I started to get sick about a couple weeks after we had a mold remediation done in our home after finding mold in our bathroom and laundry room. We had called our landlord and he hired some guys to come fix it. They came. They did their deed. I was pretty curious about the work they were doing and asked a few questions, since our plan was to rent until we could save up a good downpayment and buy it, but obviously didnt want to a buy a money pit, or worse. One guy told me as they were leaving that we probably still have mold and to check around the baseboards in other areas of the home, and to consider not buying the home. Another guy told me as he was working that black mold can't hurt you, that there's a lot of misconceptions about black mold. They removed a bunch of drywall in three different rooms, but didn't want to remove the back wall in the laundry room as it was blocked by the boiler and the hot water heater. Then they set up some fans and told me to let them run for three days and to use the house as I normally would. On the last day a guy came to pick up the fans and told me if we'd been feeling sick we'd feel better soon ×
The day after halloween Tom surprised me with some new carpeting which we badly needed. I was thrilled. That's when the infections I was having started to turn into scary odd symptoms. And Sawyers behavior started to really concern me and Kylee started to really concern me.
When I realized it could be because of the mold, and I read other people's stories and symptoms I just knew. Everything started to make sense. Even our dog and cats reoccurring health issues. I knew in my heart. I called an expert who works for a lab who tests molds for toxins. It was an expensive test but he said it sounded very much like I needed it done, and on a "whim" I hired them to come sample it. He had a man out to my home at ten o'clock the next morning from 170 miles away. He walked around my home nodding and taking pictures, sticking pieces of tape to my walls in my living room, laundry, bathroom.. He also grabbed a piece of crumbled moldy drywall and asked what symptoms we were having, asked a lot of questions, made a lot of notes, checked my humidity levels. He said two or three is normal. Five is high. Ours was 22%. They waived my expedited fee and rushed my sample to Florida to a lab where they would test it and let me know in 24 to 48 hours. I paced my house until they called and told me what I already knew. High levels of toxic stachybotrys mold spores which produce mycotoxins and can kill you if you are exposed for long enough. They are airborn and they settle all over your home and you and everything in it. Tom picked Sawyer and I up immediately and we took nothing and left. We grabbed Kylee out of school early, and went to a friends to try and figure out what we were going to do. This was Friday. After an emotion Rollercoaster weekend and feeling like death and trying to comfort Sawyer and Kylee, we woke up early and went to quite a few appointments today. We're all being referred to infectious disease doctors. Were still unsure if any of our things can be salvaged. We're staying with friends until we can find a house. We're trying to find someone who can test us for mycotoxins in our body and it can only be done in labs. I had to give my dog up to a placement home. I had to put my poor cat in the pole barn until we can find somewhere else to live, and hope that I can help her when we do. We're making an angry file against our landlord and the mold remediation company. We're shocked. We're numb. We're angry. We're devestated. We had no idea this could even happen let alone to us. We're doing our best to be strong and do what we have to do for our family and fighting for answers and testing and hoping with everything we have for fast treatment and results and to get ourselves in a better place. To give our kids some sort of Christmas. Some sort of life. Cause it wall all just taken from all of us. And I just want to scream.
PS- Mold can and will hurt you. Don't believe everything doctors say. Always trust your gut. Always research.
Please, please, if you can find it in your heart to make any donation at all to help this family it would be so appreciated! Especially during the holidays, they have lost everything and are physically ill on top of it all. Any donations are so helpful and I really want to be able to help them out!!!
Thank you so much!
Jamie
Family Nightmare:
I apologize for my vague posts lately. I haven't really been able to find the right words for what is happening in my life. I'm still not sure I have it right. But I've had a few sweet concerned friends message me and it's exhausting telling my story over and over. I can't even stand it anymore. So here it is. I started getting sick around the end of September. Nothing too alarming, a tooth infection, followed by a bladder infection, and then a "staph infection", one after another. I was put on several antibiotics and seen multiple doctors. I'm kind of a trooper so those things were things I could deal with just fine. It was a little strange how they were right after another but I didn't think much of it. Then the kids started itching and feeling yucky. Kylee had headaches and sore legs. Sawyer seemed cranky and irritable. I got an awful rash and my "staph infection" was spreading. The doctors couldn't figure it out. I felt like I was getting worse and worse and started having some really scary odd symptoms. I was researching and researching and everyone was telling me to calm down, to not google, that I was stressing myself out, making myself sick. I didn't stop. I knew something was wrong and that something was wrong with the kids and I thought and thought and I realized eventually that I started to get sick about a couple weeks after we had a mold remediation done in our home after finding mold in our bathroom and laundry room. We had called our landlord and he hired some guys to come fix it. They came. They did their deed. I was pretty curious about the work they were doing and asked a few questions, since our plan was to rent until we could save up a good downpayment and buy it, but obviously didnt want to a buy a money pit, or worse. One guy told me as they were leaving that we probably still have mold and to check around the baseboards in other areas of the home, and to consider not buying the home. Another guy told me as he was working that black mold can't hurt you, that there's a lot of misconceptions about black mold. They removed a bunch of drywall in three different rooms, but didn't want to remove the back wall in the laundry room as it was blocked by the boiler and the hot water heater. Then they set up some fans and told me to let them run for three days and to use the house as I normally would. On the last day a guy came to pick up the fans and told me if we'd been feeling sick we'd feel better soon ×
The day after halloween Tom surprised me with some new carpeting which we badly needed. I was thrilled. That's when the infections I was having started to turn into scary odd symptoms. And Sawyers behavior started to really concern me and Kylee started to really concern me.
When I realized it could be because of the mold, and I read other people's stories and symptoms I just knew. Everything started to make sense. Even our dog and cats reoccurring health issues. I knew in my heart. I called an expert who works for a lab who tests molds for toxins. It was an expensive test but he said it sounded very much like I needed it done, and on a "whim" I hired them to come sample it. He had a man out to my home at ten o'clock the next morning from 170 miles away. He walked around my home nodding and taking pictures, sticking pieces of tape to my walls in my living room, laundry, bathroom.. He also grabbed a piece of crumbled moldy drywall and asked what symptoms we were having, asked a lot of questions, made a lot of notes, checked my humidity levels. He said two or three is normal. Five is high. Ours was 22%. They waived my expedited fee and rushed my sample to Florida to a lab where they would test it and let me know in 24 to 48 hours. I paced my house until they called and told me what I already knew. High levels of toxic stachybotrys mold spores which produce mycotoxins and can kill you if you are exposed for long enough. They are airborn and they settle all over your home and you and everything in it. Tom picked Sawyer and I up immediately and we took nothing and left. We grabbed Kylee out of school early, and went to a friends to try and figure out what we were going to do. This was Friday. After an emotion Rollercoaster weekend and feeling like death and trying to comfort Sawyer and Kylee, we woke up early and went to quite a few appointments today. We're all being referred to infectious disease doctors. Were still unsure if any of our things can be salvaged. We're staying with friends until we can find a house. We're trying to find someone who can test us for mycotoxins in our body and it can only be done in labs. I had to give my dog up to a placement home. I had to put my poor cat in the pole barn until we can find somewhere else to live, and hope that I can help her when we do. We're making an angry file against our landlord and the mold remediation company. We're shocked. We're numb. We're angry. We're devestated. We had no idea this could even happen let alone to us. We're doing our best to be strong and do what we have to do for our family and fighting for answers and testing and hoping with everything we have for fast treatment and results and to get ourselves in a better place. To give our kids some sort of Christmas. Some sort of life. Cause it wall all just taken from all of us. And I just want to scream.
PS- Mold can and will hurt you. Don't believe everything doctors say. Always trust your gut. Always research.
Please, please, if you can find it in your heart to make any donation at all to help this family it would be so appreciated! Especially during the holidays, they have lost everything and are physically ill on top of it all. Any donations are so helpful and I really want to be able to help them out!!!
Thank you so much!
Jamie
Organizer
Jamie Beller Grillo
Organizer
Bay City, MI