Toxic Mold – In a Child’s Words

I would like to create and organize a mold exposure association to help others like my brother, myself and also my mother – people that can’t financially get themselves better and those who have no money to clothe and feed their families. I would like to have tutors for their children. Also,  I would like to refer a doctor who knows how to cure and get rid of mold in your bodies.

This would be a great idea because my family was in this situation we would have been homeless if it weren’t for my grandma. Actually should I say homeless and to close to death. I would like to put the way I felt through this experience into my own words. It started off with my mother being so sick she couldn’t life her head she didn’t even have the energy to get a sip of water. It then lead to Roxane my mother into the emergency room. After being diagnosed with meningitis, my brother had a case of ringworm not knowing it was caused from mold. He then was ten years of age. Joseph started vomiting – it was the worst thing to ever watch my family this sick not understanding that all of this was caused from one thing: TOXIC MOLD.

After a few weeks, I then noticed myself starting to struggle trying to make it to school and trying to have a full day. I thought all of this would go away, but I was wrong. Being that my mother and brother were in the hospital, I thought I would be on my own at a very young age. It was the worst thing to think about losing my best friend and my pal at the same time. The two people that mean the world to me. I would go to school to try and finish my 8th grade year and would often be asked by fellow classmates why can’t I go anywhere. I then began to crumble, feeling as there was no life left to me.

My brother was in the hospital for two years not knowing how to find a cure for his stomach. Then, he found out his stomach was paralyzed. My brother couldn’t hold a sip of water down. He went through something that no one, especially a ten year old, should go through. I sat and watched a part of me go through this. I watched him lay in the hospital bed for two years. Then I got so sick I couldn’t graduate my 8th grade year. I had to go to summer school and then had to get into home school. I lost my friends and couldn’t do anything.

After my mother watching a show on TV about a family suffering from toxic mold having the same symptoms as my family, she then began to worry us. So we got out of this house leaving everything my parents had worked for behind. We had the house tested and this beautiful home that we thought was the house of our dreams was infested with POISON meaning TOXIC MOLD. So we live with my grandparents. I would take showers at night and while washing my hair, chunks would fall out. It was the feeling of being bald. Then I had to go under some of the most uncomfortable test for years, worrying about if they would be able to stop the pain I was going through.

A normal child my age would have been going to dances, playing sports, healthy, and living a normal life. Instead I was worrying if I would live to see the next day. All of the fight I had in me was no longer there. I couldn’t fight anymore. I would sit on the side of my bed very weak not able to hold my head up and tell my sick mother I am going to make it this time. All my mother would say is please please don’t give up we can make it. Fight for me and please pray. Well that night I made it through thank God.

A couple weeks later after going through this every day I began crawling out of the covers in my mothers bed to lean over the toilet with everything coming out of me so I began to fight like the person I am and it kept up I began to keep having this that whole night after the last time I could get myself up and make it to lean over the side of the bed to throw up .I felt no life I had tears rolling from my eyes and telling my mother and father this is it I can’t make it I am going to die. My grandmother then awoke not knowing what was going on, but knew I was sick and all she could hear was those words coming from my infested mouth I AM GOING TO DIE. My grandmother grabbed me and never expressed the way she felt about me until then I could barely comprehend what she was saying, but all I could hear was you are my angel and you will make it you are a fighter. After my dad carrying me into his car we made it to the emergency room I didn’t know where I was all I know is that I was repeating myself constantly I AM GOING TO DIE. They laid me in the bed in the emergency room my skin yellow and my head hanging, gasping for air I knew I had my best friend beside me and with her around me I know she will fight with me. As they gave me fluids I started to fall asleep as this time it was 5:00 in the morning all I could do was opening my eyes and squint to look at my best friend holding my hand and praying for me. All I did was wink at her to let her know I knew she was beside me through this.

So I made it through. I have this guardian angel in my life who has been beside me since birth and has stood by me through sickness and health this person means the world to me and if there was any way to describe the way I feel about her MY NAN would be the song THE WIND BENEATH MY WINGS.

I really don’t know where my family and I would be without her. She is the greatest thing in my life she is the only one who has believed in me my whole life and has always made things better. While going through all of the uncomfortable test and procedures my Nan stood by. My Nan being beside me through this is the greatest feeling because I know she will fight with me and will not stop until we find the cure. My family has been through hell and back. But I am going to tell you I don’t need anything in the world, but my HEALTH & MY FAMILY.

After I got out the hospital I began to suffer more and more like there was no end to all of this as I laid in bed my mother laid next to me just as sick as me if not worse. My mother being the beautiful women she is just began to weaken more and more each day and didn’t look like the women she used to be. Though the only way I could recognize her was her strength and she is a fighter just like me. There is one thing about my family that I can proudly say we are fighters and no one can tear us apart. It’s terrible to say, but I don’t even know what a normal life is anymore.

Stephanie C.
Metairie, Louisiana

Toxic Mold – In a Child’s Words

Author: Carolyn Willbanks