I keep thinking about making a go fund me page.

And then I don’t.

The situation seems too hard to explain. And of course that would mean asking for help. I’ve never been good at asking for help. I struggle.

Hard.

There are so many people struggling with so many things. Why should anyone help me when they could help someone else instead? But then again, I’m not in any position to help anyone unless I’m able to heal and I need help to do that. Ugh…I go round and round.

So, what exactly is that situation, you ask? *Sigh* healing from mold illness.

Here’s the deal, I’ve been sick for over nine years. I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome almost a decade ago. In the early days of my illness I was bed bound. I spent three years in bed. I was so sick my ex husband sometimes had to dress me because I didn’t have the energy to lift my arms on my own.

At some point, I started doing a lot of research and with treatment from some more holistic doctors and my own interventions, I started to heal. For a few years, I continually improved and then I plateaued. I continued researching and working on healing but no forward movement.

Almost three years ago, I found out that I was pregnant. My son is the best thing that has ever happened to me but pregnancy and taking care of an infant/toddler do not mix well with chronic illness and my health has made a steep decline prompting me to again seek intervention.

Enter mold, the missing piece of the puzzle. Discovering mycotoxins in my body and looking into mold illness, suddenly the pieces fit. Symptoms that I couldn’t make sense of suddenly made sense and a sense of hope in healing had been restored. There was something I could do.

Get out of the mold. Get the mold out of my body. Heal whatever damage that is left.

*Sigh*

If only it were that easy. The reality of trying to get out of the mold alone is proving difficult to say the least. That’s where the go fund me would come in.

Options for getting out of the mold include remediation of our house, or moving out of the house.

initially we had decided to remediate but the house needs a lot of work. A LOT. Should we remediate, we would end up with a mortgage as big as if we moved to still be in a house that isn’t big enough (my son shares a room with me, which is fine now. He’s only two but he’s only going to get bigger. And there is no room to play…. This house is tiny.) and in an unsafe neighborhood (we’ve had multiple shootings around our house, there are multiple drug dealers in the apartments across the street, a prostitute that works in the church parking lot behind our house, everytime there is a car accident the occupants of the car run because they are either intoxicated or have warrants and my partner and his friend were held up at gunpoint sitting in a van on the street. It wasn’t a bad neighborhood when my parents bought this house, it is now).

That leaves moving.

We discussed getting me my own place (I live with my parents, not sure if I mentioned that)but rent is ridiculous, and all the low income options had three to five year waiting lists. Even if that wasn’t the case, I am unable to live on my own until I’ve done some significant healing. I am too sick to complete the daily tasks of living on my own on an ongoing basis.

So, we’ve decided to buy a new house.

Oh my God, if you are not trying to buy a house right now, I don’t even know how to explain the current housing market. Houses that just a few years ago were selling for 70 – 100,000 are going for 2-300,000 now. The two houses we’ve put offers on were listed at 210,000 and sold for over 280,000. It’s insane.

We can only afford to offer $250,000 and it’s becoming increasingly clear that it’s going to be extremely hard if not impossible to get a house at that price. Between the lack of houses for sale (that’s why they are selling for so much. There are way more potential buyers than there are available houses), the fact that we can’t even consider any house the has any signs of mold and the bidding wars that happen over any house that isn’t falling down… We need more money.

That’s why I start thinking about making a Go Fund Me….. But then I don’t.

Can I really ask people for monetary help? I’m uncomfortable asking for help period. And if I did, how much would I ask for? We need at least $50,000 just to make us a contender in the bidding wars. On top of that, everything we own has to be properly cleaned or disposed of when we move. Most porus items will need to be thrown out, including clothes and furniture. We’ll need to replace most of our belongings. And then there’s the thing that I keep trying not to even think about because I have no idea how I’m going to pay for it….. The actual healing. I will need to detox (my whole family will. While I’m the only person who is severely ill, both of my parents show signs of mild toxicity and I’ve recently discovered that a few symptoms that my son has, that doctors have been unable to explain but have sent him both to a cardiologist and a neurologist, are symptoms of mold exposure) and then heal the damage that is left behind. That will likely take multiple practitioners, none of whom take insurance, and several years. That’s a lot of money. I couldn’t ask for the amount we need. Literally anything would help but…..

I’m feeling a bit desperate. I need to get out of this house like now but how? I’m tired of being sick. Nine years of constant debilitating illness and there is something that can be done and money is the thing standing in the way. *Sigh* I want to live a full life. I want to live period. I had to wait twenty years to get my son, I want to stick around long enough to raise him. I want to have enough energy to be the Mom he deserves. And most importantly, I don’t want his life his health to be affected by illness in the way mine has been.

So….Go Fund Me….

I don’t know.

See here for a list of mold illness symptoms.