The Goodness of God Through His People

If you read my hubby's blog you know that I totally stole that title from him! But I know he won't mind, love you babe :) As you all know we have been "tenting it" in our garage for about a month now. And the weather isn't getting any warmer out. Last night at church a man from our church pulled J aside and started talking to him about our situation. He has an empty 2 bedroom house right next to his house that he said we could stay in. What an amazing blessing. We are going to be going over there on Wednesday night during the kids' choir practice and checking it out. I can't even begin to tell you how blessed I feel and how at peace I am with all that is going on in our lives right now. God is really showing himself faithful to those who believe in Him. I can say through this whole process I haven't been afraid of what is going to happen to us or where we are going to go I believe that God would work it all out on our behalf, and guess what, HE did! Even though we haven't moved there yet or checked it out I just know that He will take care of us one way or another. I will say that my head was going crazy last night thinking about all the changes a move would make for us and how it would all work out but as soon as I gave it over to God I was able to sleep. That is HUGE for me, usually when my mind gets like that I have a terrible time falling asleep and then staying asleep. I will say lastly that the next time I update I will provide at least a few Disney pictures as they are on the computer in the house and we are working on making the house clean for me to be in a few hours at a time!!! Now praying that my hubby's need to get everything done in a 3 week period won't drive me CRAZY. He wants to pack, paint, and sell the house! People have asked if we are doing all the things to make is clean of all mold and spores why are we moving? Well we really and truly have out grown our house. We feel this was the push to get us to buy a bigger house so we aren't so cramped. Though I will say that our next house will not be bought on a whim like this house nor will it have been a foreclosure.

No Disney pictures just yet...

We did get the cd in the mail a few days ago but there was about 300 pictures on it and then the ones from our personal camera adding it to about 500 that we took during our trip. I am hopeful to be able to go through and find some of my favorites to share with you! But I mainly got on here to give an update on what is going on here. We got our second set of tests back and they still have 3 kinds of toxic mold but the guy who came to our house said that he couldn't find any evidence of mold growing in our home. He gave us some suggestions on what to do. As it sits right now we think that our house has been cross contaminated by a previous living situation that just got some mold testing done as well. The levels at that place where higher than ours. The only thing is that we have lived here for 5 years meaning we haven't lived there. We are still trying to sort some things out. Though we do have a game plan now on things we need to do to get our house livable and get us out of the garage. On a good note we did get an offer to stay at one of J's families houses that is completely empty. The only thing we need to worry about is the fact that it has been empty for 2 years. These are the houses that tend to have issues with mold. We are hoping to be able to go over there sometime next week and check it out, our environmental hygienist has given us things to look for at this house. If it checks out with appearances we are going to give it a try. If I feel ok we'll stay while we get things squared away at our house and if it does make me sick then we are back to our garage and looking for another place to stay during the cold time. The cool thing about this house is that it has 4 bedrooms and it will also give us a chance to see if 4 bedrooms will work for us and our family. If not it will either be 3 or 5 bedrooms we look at! I am excited to see how God works in all of this. I know that he is really working at my heart right now. I am really struggling through this all. I can feel the prayers of friends and family but I could so do without the comments of some people. This situation has also opened up talk about my homeschooling the kids and J isn't completely against it as he was about 3 months ago. All I know is that the kids being gone makes me miss them but sometimes when they get home I want them to leave. I think that they are just so tired from sleeping in a tent for the last almost 4 weeks. Just to put this out there too, at bedtime I go in the tent with the kids and become the sleep warden. I think I say, "stop talking" and "lay down" about 50 times before they give up and go to sleep usually 2 hours after we first got in the tent. I am trying not to get mad at them but when they don't go to sleep when we come out here they don't move in the morning. But if I homeschooled them then we wouldn't have to get up so early or even leave. I have faith that God will lead us in the direction we should go. With everything going on I can say that I have peace even when I am struggling I have peace.

Disney

Now that the dust as sort of settled around here with getting back from vacation and then starting school I finally have some time to talk about the trip we took to Disney almost 2 weeks ago. That morning we woke the kids up by telling them to get up and dressed we are going to Disney! Their faces were so cute. We got there at 12:30 on Saturday the 6th. By the time we got a bite to eat and put our luggage in our room we were at Magic Kingdom by 2:30ish. We went straight for the buzz lightyear spin but it was closed. The kids told us that was the first ride they wanted to go on, oh well. Right next to it is was a newer attraction that wasn't there the last time called Laugh Floor from Monsters, Inc. The first character that the kids got to meet was buzz lightyear Peanut did better than I thought she would be so was a little nervous about him. We spent the rest of the day there and there was magic hours until 1am. Since we had been up since 5:30am we decided that we would leave before it was all closed. The second day we got up and headed back to Magic Kingdom. That is my favorite park out of the four! I really don't remember which park we went to which day unless I have pictures to show for them and we are waiting for the cd of pictures of our trip. We went to all 4 parks and did almost everything possible to do at each one meaning our days were busy and fast paced! Here are some of the high lights I would like to remember from this trip.
* Peanut going on her first air plane ride! Though Monkey threw up while we were landing on the way there, so not fun.
* sleeping in a bed for a week was so nice.
* Jeff was in the Indiana Jones stunt show and I have a video of him doing the dying scene! Kids thought that was super cool.
* GG getting picked to talk during the Laugh Floor but I missed it because Peanut had to use the bathroom but just hearing her tell about it was all the excitement I needed to make it a memory.
* Red being talked to by the army men from Toy Story during the parade at Hollywood Studios. Red had on a camouflage shirt and the guy pointed him out and said, "I like your camouflage but it isn't doing you any good right now because I can see you. I bet if I stuck you in the forest I wouldn't see you at all." His face was the best part of that interaction!
* all the yummy food we ate!
* meeting Tinker Bell even though it was the longest we waited for anything that whole time!
* The character meals were really fun too.
* all the rides that they kids were able to go on this time that they were too short to go on last time, like the Rock N Roller-coaster (GG and Monkey) and Tower of Terror (Red).

Those are my high lights though the whole trip was a complete blast! The kids did a great job walking and not complaining too much since it was over 95 degrees most days with a high humidity level. And I don't even think they fought one time!

Things I have learned...

Over the last few months when I started to suspect mold as being the reason I was getting so sick and being in so much pain I have learned a lot about that nasty fungus. I think I will do a bullet for some of the facts and tidbits I have learned about mold.

• when your doctor is baffled at why you are sick and all tests come back negative then you have to think outside the medical field and into your environment.
• toxic mold is a endocrine disruptor and can cause miscarriages and spontaneous death in unborn babies.
• toxins from mold and any other toxins pulls our spines out of alignment hindering our brains to fully communicate to the rest of our body.
• stachybotrys is one of the worst molds to have in your home. Dead mold spores are just as dangerous to your health as live spores of this mold. There are other toxic molds that are just as harmful but easier to remediate.
• if your pets are having random illnesses or getting tumors you might have a mold issue in your home.
  
• children are usually effected the most by mold exposure but adults can obviously have health issues from it as well, I'm living proof.

These are just a few of the things I have learned, there is so much more on this topic that has interested me on this journey. I now am learning how to detoxify my body from fungus. This is going to be a long and slow process but if I can stick with it I will benefit greatly from the journey of detoxing.

Our Peanut turns 2!

I can't believe that it has been 2 years since she was born. I am so thankful for her in so many ways. She brings smiles to everyone and just so much fun to be around. But I think I am the most thankful for her coming out by c-section. If she would not have been born that way my body probably wouldn't have showed signs of distress from all the mold in our house. It just makes me in awe of how God works for the good of those who believe in him. Everything in our lives are so up in the air right now and can be a bit scary or overwhelming but I know that God is bigger than all of this and he loves us so I have peace that we will get through this and we will be stronger as a family because of this storm of mold in our lives. So, thank you Jesus, for your precious gift, of our baby girl! We love you little one.

I was a bit sad last night to not be decorating her room with streamers but the first thing she did this morning was open her cards and all her siblings loved on her with Happy Birthday and hugs!

Disney, School and Mold

You like my title? Yeah well that is the best I can do because I'm tired! We got back from our Disney trip late last night and we had a great time. The kids start school tomorrow and I have mixed emotions about that. And the mold still haven't gotten any answers on that front either and I am frustrated about that. J just came out to the garage for the night and I am taking up too much room with the laptop so this is going to be short. I will update more tomorrow when the kids are not home and Peanut is napping!!!

Absentee

I have been a little out of the blogging lately. I have a lot on my mind and a lot going on at home. I thought I might share some of it with you and maybe help myself through this process. If you have been following my blog for any length of time you know that I struggle with an unknown illness. Well over the last 2 weeks everything has come to a head and we now know why I am sick.

This is the run down of events that happened. Went to a friends house for some girl time late June. One of the ladies was talking about a radio show on Moody Radio. I don't really listen to talk radio so I would have never heard this. She was talking about a family called the Fabry's who were talking about mold illness and mold poisoning. That night I got on the computer and pulled up the program from that day and listened. It intrigued me and I went to Andrea's blog. I read through their story and some of her posts. I left her a comment but she wasn't able to respond to it so she gave me her email address. I started emailing her with questions I had. She was very encouraging and answered most of my questions the best she could. I was really scared to think this could be causing my illness especially with all the kids in the house. I finally got up the nerve to go to the doctor and ask for the blood work to be done. The first results came back within a week. Every blood test has a range. I was under the range for the Leptin. I was starting to think that the other tests weren't going to ever come or they got lost or whatever. On Aug 27, I will never forget this date, the doctor called with the other two lab results. The VEGF with a range of 31 to 86 was under 31 but it didn't give a number, this explains why I have been so tired, lack of oxygen. Then the big test specifically for mold, c4a, with a range of 0-2830 came back and showed my blood was 19,605. Yes, almost 7 times higher than the allotted range. I then started an anti-fungal diet and we went camping. That weekend I felt the best in 2 years. Came home and slept in the house one night. Next morning wasn't feeling very good. Decided that camping in the garage would probably be the best place for our whole family until we got more answers. On Wednesday we had our house tested for mold. Today we got part of the results back. We don't have the paperwork on the tests because there was something wrong but the guy said that there is definitely high levels of mold spores in our home. We also have the bad mold that is hard to get rid of so we might have to completely walk away from this house and everything in it. Though I will say that through all of this Jeff and I have communicated better and gotten closer as a couple and since our family is sleeping in the tent we have been bonding more as a family as well. So through all the bad that is going on God is showing his glory in all of this and helping us to take one step at a time. Praise the Lord we finally have an answer as to why I have been so sick.