Help the McNeills Move and Heal from Toxic Mold
Donation protected
Hi, my name is Chris McNeill and for seven and a half years, my partner, Trina, and I have been looking for answers to her health issues. It wasn’t until March of this year that we think we may have finally found an answer.
Beginning in early 2014, Trina was forced to give up a life that she loved because of the myriad of health issues that it brought forth. She was so weak that lifting a camera and pursuing her passion for photography had to go by the wayside. Her popular blog , Of Trees and Hues, was being updated less and less frequently because sitting at a computer put her in so much pain. Our hiking trips had to be cancelled, and we began to question if she could handle the physical stressors of childbirth.
She’s seen countless doctors over the years, and, until recently, none of them have been able to help her. In the interim, she’s been diagnosed with a slew of diseases, like Fibromyalgia and Hashimoto’s disease, that her physicians have refused to treat, either because traditional doctors have a limited understanding of these illnesses or because--sadly enough--there is no treatment.
Last year, after struggling through the medical system with nothing to show for it, Trina sought treatment from a functional medicine doctor. Functional medicine attempts to find the root cause of illnesses and resolve the underlying issue. This new doctor suggested that Trina may have been exposed to mold, and a urinalysis proved this hypothesis to be correct: Trina had an extremely high concentration of Aspergillus mycotoxins in her body. Suddenly, we had our answer, but with it came a ton more questions, like what is a mycotoxin?
According to the World Health Organization, mycotoxins are naturally occurring toxins produced by certain molds like Aspergillus, and, according to a 2003 paper published in Clinical Microbiology Reviews, “mycotoxins are capable of causing disease and death in humans and other animals.” We didn’t need a urinalysis to tell us that Trina’s symptoms aligned with someone suffering from mold toxicity. Her symptoms are systemic, meaning they affect her entire body, on a near-daily basis. They include, but are not limited to, the following:
Cognitive impairment and brain fog
Dissociation
Mental confusion
Word-finding difficulty
Depression and anxiety
Chronic fatigue
Muscle weakness and pain
Tingling limbs
Chronic headaches
Shortness of breath
Heart palpitations
Food sensitivities
Leaky gut
Nausea and low appetite
Abdominal pain
Nutritional deficiencies
Chemical sensitivity
Eczema and painful rashes
Insomnia and night sweats
Blurred vision
I asked Trina to share her experience with mold toxicity and this is what she said:
“When I’m feeling my worst, I often feel drunk or as if I’ve been poisoned. It is quite fearful and worrisome. My balance becomes unstable, I bump into walls, my speech is slurred and quiet, my vision is blurry, and I feel very lightheaded. I also have difficulty speaking and comprehending others. It feels as though my entire body and mind are shutting down. Sometimes this will leave me bedridden for days or weeks at a time.”
It’s painful to watch someone you care about fall apart all over again every single day. But with a test definitively showing that she was being affected by Aspergillus, we finally had some hope and a way to move forward.
Trina’s doctor began treatment immediately with binding agents, detoxification prescriptions, air purifiers with HEPA filters, and dietary and lifestyle changes. None of the treatments were covered by insurance, but paying for prescriptions and treatment out-of-pocket was worth the potential of Trina being healthy again. After several months of Trina showing no improvement, though, it became clear that we needed to test our apartment—where we’d been living since before Trina became ill.
Mold needs two things to grow and thrive: moisture and food. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, “mold will develop within 24-48 hours of water exposure” so long as it has organic material to feed off of. Since we moved into our apartment in early 2013, we have had no shortage of water leaks, with some taking months to fully remedy, but a leak from our bathroom sink that flooded our downstairs neighbor’s ceiling took over two years to fully repair. During that time, water was allowed to soak into wood and Sheetrock, providing an ample environment for mold to call home.
When we reached out to our property manager about testing our apartment for mold, he dismissed the notion. He refused to acknowledge the history of leaks during our many years in the apartment, and he insinuated that any mold issues we were experiencing was a result of our own neglect. So, because he would not entertain the idea of testing our home, we hired our own inspector.
The inspector’s results were both surprising and expected. They indicated what we had suspected for some time: our apartment had mold. The shocking thing, though, is that the results indicated that we had a lot more mold than we realized. Our bathroom wall tested positive for a species of mold called Chaetomium, and an air sample in our living room showed that it had a 5,000% higher concentration of airborne mold spores than a control sample. And the species of mold that had been ravaging the air we were breathing every day? Aspergillus.
Our home had been poisoning us.
Had the mold been here all along? Was it here before we arrived? When Trina started showing signs of Fibromyalgia in 2014, was it really the mycotoxins wreaking havoc on her nervous system? And when I was having mysterious seizures in 2016, could it have been because of the mold?
These questions continue to agonize us today. We consulted with other experts, like mold remediators, microbial consultants, and doctors, and none of them could answer them. They all were sure about one thing though: we needed to get rid of the mold at the source or move.
We reluctantly attempted the first option and, once again, contacted our property manager. And, once again, the blame was pinned on us. He and the landlords tried to say that our dog was the source of the mold. They accused us of trying to commit fraud. They doted on their honor and integrity—that they’ve been managing properties for over twenty years—before suggesting that they knew “how to deal with tenants like us.”
So, we now have no other choice: we are moving.
“Moving” is such a simple word, though. We’ve moved plenty of times before; it’s tough, and it’s exhausting, but it’s usually rewarded with lukewarm pizza, cheap beer, and a sense of accomplishment. This time, we are faced with a daunting challenge that “moving” cannot describe on its own: every single material item in our home is now laced with toxic spores.
There are a lot of things we can clean, like most of our clothes, our sheets, and our dishes, but almost everything else needs to be thrown away. Our brand new mattress, our couch, our library of books, and our turntable are just a fraction of the items that we are going to have to replace. But then there are others, like photo albums and 20 years worth of cards we’ve given each other for anniversaries and birthdays, that cannot be replaced; so, while our journey to escape the home that has been poisoning us has a heavy financial burden, it has an emotional toll as well.
This is where you come in. While you can’t help us reproduce the sentimental belongings that we have to discard, you can help us piece our life back together. So far, we have spent or lost a combined $5,000 trying to find our way out of this storm. Over the next week, as we begin the actual process of moving, we will need every penny we can. Your donation will help with a portion of the the following:
Functional medicine fees
Medical labs and tests
Prescriptions and Supplements
Mattress
Bed frame
Pillows
Couch
Shoes
Food
Toiletries
Moving expenses
Storage unit
Cleaning supplies
HEPA Vacuum
If you can give, in any capacity, Trina and I will be eternally grateful. Giving does not have to be monetary; you can give us hope by sharing our story and wishing us well. However, if you can help us financially, I will write you a short poem or draw a doodle for each donor as a way of saying thank you.
With your help, Trina and I can truly begin our path to healing. Thank you so much.
____
A short, yet informative documentary about the health dangers of mold toxicity:
Moldy Documentary on Youtube
Beginning in early 2014, Trina was forced to give up a life that she loved because of the myriad of health issues that it brought forth. She was so weak that lifting a camera and pursuing her passion for photography had to go by the wayside. Her popular blog , Of Trees and Hues, was being updated less and less frequently because sitting at a computer put her in so much pain. Our hiking trips had to be cancelled, and we began to question if she could handle the physical stressors of childbirth.
She’s seen countless doctors over the years, and, until recently, none of them have been able to help her. In the interim, she’s been diagnosed with a slew of diseases, like Fibromyalgia and Hashimoto’s disease, that her physicians have refused to treat, either because traditional doctors have a limited understanding of these illnesses or because--sadly enough--there is no treatment.
Last year, after struggling through the medical system with nothing to show for it, Trina sought treatment from a functional medicine doctor. Functional medicine attempts to find the root cause of illnesses and resolve the underlying issue. This new doctor suggested that Trina may have been exposed to mold, and a urinalysis proved this hypothesis to be correct: Trina had an extremely high concentration of Aspergillus mycotoxins in her body. Suddenly, we had our answer, but with it came a ton more questions, like what is a mycotoxin?
According to the World Health Organization, mycotoxins are naturally occurring toxins produced by certain molds like Aspergillus, and, according to a 2003 paper published in Clinical Microbiology Reviews, “mycotoxins are capable of causing disease and death in humans and other animals.” We didn’t need a urinalysis to tell us that Trina’s symptoms aligned with someone suffering from mold toxicity. Her symptoms are systemic, meaning they affect her entire body, on a near-daily basis. They include, but are not limited to, the following:
Cognitive impairment and brain fog
Dissociation
Mental confusion
Word-finding difficulty
Depression and anxiety
Chronic fatigue
Muscle weakness and pain
Tingling limbs
Chronic headaches
Shortness of breath
Heart palpitations
Food sensitivities
Leaky gut
Nausea and low appetite
Abdominal pain
Nutritional deficiencies
Chemical sensitivity
Eczema and painful rashes
Insomnia and night sweats
Blurred vision
I asked Trina to share her experience with mold toxicity and this is what she said:
“When I’m feeling my worst, I often feel drunk or as if I’ve been poisoned. It is quite fearful and worrisome. My balance becomes unstable, I bump into walls, my speech is slurred and quiet, my vision is blurry, and I feel very lightheaded. I also have difficulty speaking and comprehending others. It feels as though my entire body and mind are shutting down. Sometimes this will leave me bedridden for days or weeks at a time.”
It’s painful to watch someone you care about fall apart all over again every single day. But with a test definitively showing that she was being affected by Aspergillus, we finally had some hope and a way to move forward.
Trina’s doctor began treatment immediately with binding agents, detoxification prescriptions, air purifiers with HEPA filters, and dietary and lifestyle changes. None of the treatments were covered by insurance, but paying for prescriptions and treatment out-of-pocket was worth the potential of Trina being healthy again. After several months of Trina showing no improvement, though, it became clear that we needed to test our apartment—where we’d been living since before Trina became ill.
Mold needs two things to grow and thrive: moisture and food. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency, “mold will develop within 24-48 hours of water exposure” so long as it has organic material to feed off of. Since we moved into our apartment in early 2013, we have had no shortage of water leaks, with some taking months to fully remedy, but a leak from our bathroom sink that flooded our downstairs neighbor’s ceiling took over two years to fully repair. During that time, water was allowed to soak into wood and Sheetrock, providing an ample environment for mold to call home.
When we reached out to our property manager about testing our apartment for mold, he dismissed the notion. He refused to acknowledge the history of leaks during our many years in the apartment, and he insinuated that any mold issues we were experiencing was a result of our own neglect. So, because he would not entertain the idea of testing our home, we hired our own inspector.
The inspector’s results were both surprising and expected. They indicated what we had suspected for some time: our apartment had mold. The shocking thing, though, is that the results indicated that we had a lot more mold than we realized. Our bathroom wall tested positive for a species of mold called Chaetomium, and an air sample in our living room showed that it had a 5,000% higher concentration of airborne mold spores than a control sample. And the species of mold that had been ravaging the air we were breathing every day? Aspergillus.
Our home had been poisoning us.
Had the mold been here all along? Was it here before we arrived? When Trina started showing signs of Fibromyalgia in 2014, was it really the mycotoxins wreaking havoc on her nervous system? And when I was having mysterious seizures in 2016, could it have been because of the mold?
These questions continue to agonize us today. We consulted with other experts, like mold remediators, microbial consultants, and doctors, and none of them could answer them. They all were sure about one thing though: we needed to get rid of the mold at the source or move.
We reluctantly attempted the first option and, once again, contacted our property manager. And, once again, the blame was pinned on us. He and the landlords tried to say that our dog was the source of the mold. They accused us of trying to commit fraud. They doted on their honor and integrity—that they’ve been managing properties for over twenty years—before suggesting that they knew “how to deal with tenants like us.”
So, we now have no other choice: we are moving.
“Moving” is such a simple word, though. We’ve moved plenty of times before; it’s tough, and it’s exhausting, but it’s usually rewarded with lukewarm pizza, cheap beer, and a sense of accomplishment. This time, we are faced with a daunting challenge that “moving” cannot describe on its own: every single material item in our home is now laced with toxic spores.
There are a lot of things we can clean, like most of our clothes, our sheets, and our dishes, but almost everything else needs to be thrown away. Our brand new mattress, our couch, our library of books, and our turntable are just a fraction of the items that we are going to have to replace. But then there are others, like photo albums and 20 years worth of cards we’ve given each other for anniversaries and birthdays, that cannot be replaced; so, while our journey to escape the home that has been poisoning us has a heavy financial burden, it has an emotional toll as well.
This is where you come in. While you can’t help us reproduce the sentimental belongings that we have to discard, you can help us piece our life back together. So far, we have spent or lost a combined $5,000 trying to find our way out of this storm. Over the next week, as we begin the actual process of moving, we will need every penny we can. Your donation will help with a portion of the the following:
Functional medicine fees
Medical labs and tests
Prescriptions and Supplements
Mattress
Bed frame
Pillows
Couch
Shoes
Food
Toiletries
Moving expenses
Storage unit
Cleaning supplies
HEPA Vacuum
If you can give, in any capacity, Trina and I will be eternally grateful. Giving does not have to be monetary; you can give us hope by sharing our story and wishing us well. However, if you can help us financially, I will write you a short poem or draw a doodle for each donor as a way of saying thank you.
With your help, Trina and I can truly begin our path to healing. Thank you so much.
____
A short, yet informative documentary about the health dangers of mold toxicity:
Moldy Documentary on Youtube
Fundraising team (2)
Christopher McNeill
Organizer
Sacramento, CA
Latrina McNeill
Team member