I haven't written much because I feel sick and I'm under so much stress. I've been living in a cheap apartment for almost a year, the lease is due to expire in October and I can't renew because I can no longer afford to pay rent. I'm terrified of the house with the spray foam in it, I've only been in the house twice since I moved out over a year ago, and that was for only a couple minutes each time. After the symptoms I experienced during the 2 months following the spray, just the thought of being in that house paralyzes me with fear. When my lease expires in October, I will be homeless unless I move back into that house because I've used all my savings, tapped out my credit cards and I don't make enough money to live anywhere else. Financially, when I was living in the house the money I make, along with my partner's support, was a comfortable life.
But, to add even more insult to injury, my partner of 12-13 years, who swore he'd be with me through thick or thin, has already deserted me emotionally and threatened to desert me financially if I don't move back into the house. So I've had no emotional support from him. Even a little emotional and moral support could have helped, but in fact he has made it all worse because of his apparent lack of concern for me, his verbal abuse, and threats which he uses to try to manipulate me to move back into the house. He was overseas when the foam was sprayed and didn't come back until 2 months after.
According to the doctor I saw at Duke University, people who are in the house during the spray are the people who seem to have the most severe health problems. Of the people who are not in the house during the spray, some might get sick and some might not. This seems to be the case with my partner and I, however due to his work he has only been in the house a total of 4 months since it was sprayed last July, and only for 2 months at a time so there's no telling what longer term exposure could do to him.
I also talked to another individual who was in the same situation: he was in the house during the spray and was seriously affected but his wife was out of town and she never had any symptoms of being affected by it. At the time I talked to this victim, it was 2 years after his exposure and he was still sick and still couldn't even be near any of his things that were in the spray foamed house.
To make matters even worse, I'm not the owner of the house so I've had problems finding an attorney to represent me and I don't have the money for costly air testing and medical tests to prove that the foam has made me sick and the house was and is too toxic for me to safely live in. More about the attorneys, air testing and medical aspects later.
Back to my present situation. The weeks following the spray, I made a lot of costly mistakes. I didn't realize the severity of the problem and continued for about 2 months to think I could have the house "cleaned" to resolve the problem. I paid for the wrong air tests, I paid to consult with people who either didn't care or couldn't help, I spent a lot of money staying in hotels, eating out, and boarding my cats at the vet clinic. I rented a storage unit, lived I my car and tried to camp out in my backyard in a tent to save money. I had to buy new clothes, linens, towels, etc., because everything that came out of the house had odors and residue of the spray foam, but many of the new fabric items I bought I ended up not being able to use and I didn't realize until later that it was because I had become sensitized to the nasty chemicals that are used to treat most fabrics.
I know I'm probably repeating some things I've said in my other blog posts but my thinking is often foggy and no longer organized as it was before my exposure to the spray foam. I have no doubt that some of this is probably caused by the extreme stress I've been under since last July when the foam was sprayed, but one of my worst fears, other than being homeless, is the chemicals in the spray foam have permanently damaged my brain. One of the worst symptoms I had during the first 2 weeks I was still living in the house after the foam was sprayed and during the following 2 months when I was going in the house with people who were coming over to assess the situation, was disorientation and forgetfulness. The forgetfulness began the first week during which I would lose track of what I was saying midsentence; during that first week I was feeling very spaced out and even caught myself drooling. It was terrifying. Then later after I moved out, the feeling of disorientation would come over me after about 20 +/- minutes of being in the house, and which followed a sudden feeling of weakness, like I might collapse if I didn't get out of the house. The disorientation would last for several hours after I left the house, and I would later wonder if that was the feeling which a person with early Alzheimer's disease would feel - recognition, but not being able to put it all together, knowing where you were going but not being able to figure out how to get there - which happened to me several times while I was driving and found myself unable to figure out how to get to familiar places I'd been numerous times. It was bizarre and like a horror movie, and also reminded me of some bad dreams I've had, the kind where you can't get to where you want to go, you are running but can't get anywhere, etc.
During that first 2 months, beginning just days after the foam was sprayed, I was paying and begging people for help, and I alarmed some of my friends with phone calls and text messages when I would be freaking out with severe panic and anxiety attacks. A few times, some of my friends wanted me to go to the Emergency Room and maybe I should have, but I don't have health insurance...
More later.
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