03/29/2020
Super transparent post.
This is going to end positively. So please bear with me. Big changes are coming, but I want to put the past behind me first.
The last 12 months of my life have been hell. I don’t say this lightly.
😷March of 2019: life saving emergency surgery on my abdomen. Severe anemia discovered.
💉April: begin 16 intravenous iron infusions.
🙁May: my husband starts to become extremely irritable and almost impossible to live with.
💔July: considering divorce.
🤕August: husband starts getting headaches, experiencing memory loss.
🤕September: about 5 ER trips with husband. Behavior more and more erratic but starting to understand he isn’t a bad man, this is something else.
💔😷October: he is hospitalized. My business is crumbling because I’m caring for him full-time. My brother-in-law is killed in a car accident.
⛔️November: near and extended family chaos. Husband has been tested for tumors, strokes, seizures, heart issues. Nothing is explaining symptoms. I decide I am no longer taking clients and my business has to go on hiatus.
🎄December: glimmer of hope. I’m given an opportunity to join the team at Flodesk. ❤️ Husband still sick. Flat broke. Christmas is looking a little bleak but we are learning to appreciate the non-material things. Newest theory is husband has MS.
💕January: husband and I use our Christmas gift money from family members to go on a two night trip for our anniversary. While we are away his symptoms improve. We find this odd but can’t explain it. Have a wonderful and healing 3 days/2 nights and start to feel hope.
☣️Early February: warm weekend causes horrid smell in our home. A little investigating and we have toxic mold in our crawl space where we couldn’t see it. Husband’s illness has been toxic mold syndrome all this time. At this point he can’t handle sound, he stutters really bad, has severe memory loss, twitches, heart palpitations, severe headaches.
🙎🏻🙍🏻♂️🙎🏼♀️🦮🦮🦮We move into a hotel room. The two of us, our 16 year old daughter, and all 3 dogs.
The hunt for a home begins. There is talk of a possible pandemic starting.
We realize we will lose almost everything we had because toxic mold lives in our furniture, our clothes, our books, everything.
🏡Mid February: we find a home. We buy mold killing laundry detergent to save a small portion of our clothes. We move into the house with no furniture, a bag of clothes each, my laptop so I can keep working.
We find inexpensive but comfortable mattresses at Sam’s Club. Our amazing priest rents a truck to get them to the new house. They also have sheets and other bedding on clearance.
We sleep our first night in our new home on new beds laying on a floor because we have no furniture. But we sleep. It’s quiet. It’s peaceful. It’s home. We have moved to be near what we love: our parish, our favorite shops, and easy access to the river and hiking. Generous parishioners donate a couch and chair to us, and a few other odds and ends. We are starting over. Small bit by bit.
Still have to find a way to extract ourselves and things from our old house.
❤️Late February: the resentments I’ve been holding onto are destroying my marriage. My husband takes a bold step and we go to a park and talk for three hours, getting everything out in the open and making a decision to either fix this or separate. He shows up for this in the most open, non-defensive, and loving way anyone could ask for, and I realize what he is made of, and we decide to stay together.
People are really starting to talk about coronavirus.
🖤Early March: due to absolute chaos, my work schedule has gotten erratic, but my boss is incredible and the company is super patient. I am especially grateful because I love my work more than I can say, and I’m starting to really understand what I’m passionate about (more about that later).
But I feel very ungrounded being in a new home, a new city, nothing is familiar to me. But hope is flickering. Ben is starting to get better except on days he has to go back to the old house. He wears a mask and hazmat suit. Coronavirus is hitting the news and people think that’s why he’s dressed that way. We get a lot of eye rolling.
🧻Mid March: deadline to get anything we don’t want to lose forever out of our home has come. We have just gone on recommended self-quarantine here in the St. Louis area. It’s a Monday. We go get our things. I spent the day before packing. Even without being super sensitive the mold is making me sick. Supplies are running out. Can’t find toilet paper and other basics anymore. People are panicking.
☦️⛪️Last week we are ordered to shelter in place. I have ptsd and I’m having a hard time concentrating. My faith keeps me grounded and church is closed. Fear of everything is overwhelming me. I start having panic attacks. I’m making a lot of stupid mistakes. I’m losing my ability to think. Trying to hold it together. Ben is getting symptomatic again.
🦠Friday afternoon: we find mold in our new kitchen. Not toxic. Regular.
But this is my final mental straw.
😢Friday night: I begin to cry. I suppose it had to happen at some point. I start and I can’t stop. It all comes pouring out of me. Out of the blue I get a text from my sister-in-law (who has no idea I’m in such bad shape):
“You are amazing and God loves you so very much. Keep on holding onto that.”
Finally I fall asleep.
😩😭Saturday morning: I wake up and start crying. Everyone is still asleep. I go to the front room so I won’t disturb anyone else. And just cry. My sister-in-law is texting with me again. Finally I start telling her how I’m feeling. I let it out. The more I cry, the better I start to feel.
🤕I have a really bad headache and feel especially sick. Ben seals off the kitchen and uses our new ozone generator to kill the mold spores in the kitchen. Our landlord has agreed to come Monday and begin remediation.
😴Saturday night (last night): I go to bed very early. Something internal is starting to shift. Not sure what it is but I feel true hope.
🌞Today: I wake up. My headache is gone. The sun is out. The chaos in my head is cleared. The irony of living in a time of extreme uncertainty and yet feeling for the first time in a year that I can see a way ahead is not lost on me, and I decide to write this post.
The feeling I have (that was starting slowly the day before) can only be summed up this way: you know how a female hero in a movie will come to her moment of doubt and breakdown? And all hope seems lost? But then she finds this strength she didn’t know she had, she gets up, and the villain gets this look on his face like “oh sh*t!”
💪🏻I will not be defeated by this.
This past year I’ve gotten a lot of support from some amazing people. Everyone I work with at Flodesk, Amber, Janet, Maria, Stephanie, Sylvie, Yvonne, and especially Jennifer Stone Springer, you ladies have made all the difference in the world to me. And all of the great things I’m about to do, it wouldn’t be happening if not for you all and some other incredible people in my life.
Yes we are still on lockdown. External circumstances are not what anyone would consider ideal. But it isn’t going to dictate my state of mind. I can choose health and strength and discipline. To turn and face it all instead of running or hiding, waiting for it all to somehow get better before I do the things I want to do. No longer am I looking around me, but within me.
