Day 65 | A Mini-Disaster

May 13, 2017

Today was just a normal day of mold avoidance… which, as you know by now, is not exactly a normal day. We went shopping to buy some large water jugs and then went up to the mountains to do laundry by hand. Doing laundry by hand is a lot of hard work but it sure beats being stuck in bed.

This evening we had a mini-disaster. It was time to take showers so naturally I pulled a set of towels out of our metal cabinets. (And by the way, it’s so nice to have drawers to put things in!)

The towels were new and had never been used before. Even though I had washed them I could feel instantly that they were still contaminated. My hands got all itchy and I started to feel really anxious. Oh dear! I freaked out big time and it wasn’t long before I was sobbing about how now our van was ruined and everything was poison. The towels were poison, the cabinets were poison, my clothes were poison! The van was ruined forever!

Haha! It seems funny now but it was definitely not funny at the time. I was so panicked and confused that Brett had to remind me to decontaminate. He helped me get washed up and I started to feel better fairly quickly. Maybe things weren’t as hopeless as they had seemed after all.

Even though it was quite awful, I’m sort of glad that I had this experience and was able to see that transient cross contamination won’t ruin our van permanently. Our van is fine now. It’s a big metal box and it’s designed to be resistant to mold and cross-contamination. All we had to do was throw away the bad towels and wipe down the drawer that they were in. It’s all okay now!


Disclaimer: I’m talking about transient cross-contamination only in this post not items that have been exposed to moldy buildings for a long time. These items will still denature eventually, biotoxins have a half-life after all, but it can take many years and you definitely don’t want them in your living space. And it goes without saying that items with toxic mold growing on them should be tossed.

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6 Comments

  • Ruth Meyer

    I have had days like this, when I thought I was going to “burn out” going some place, or get overly anxious during a long car ride, or knew I would have a nightmare because I went to bed feverish or in pain. It’s always a great feeling when you realize it wasn’t that bad, and it’s going to be okay. But, it’s never okay in the moment. That’s why it matters so much to have people in your life you can count on to be there, to listen, to help, and a God Who always knows the minute fluctuations and sudden turns of our mind and emotions, and can comfort us when nothing else seems to get through the walls of our own fear. Continuing in prayer (and, a wave from all of us in the YWW; you’re endurance inspires us to keep writing through any road-blocks, mind-blocks, health-blocks. We also think you’re really cool :D)

    May 24, 2017 at 1:26 am Reply
    • Alyssa

      Amen! Isn’t community great?

      May 24, 2017 at 9:12 am Reply
    • Ana Harris

      Exactly, Ruth! I’m so sorry to hear of your own health struggles but glad I can be an encouragement. All you YWW students are so awesome. I think it’s so sweet that y’all read my blog and pray for us. It means so much to us!

      May 24, 2017 at 10:34 am Reply
  • Erik Johnson

    What you need is a small trailer to use for suspect and known-contaminated items.
    Kind of like “Mold purgatory”
    Anything you aren’t sure of goes in the trailer.

    If the trailer is “too much -too close” you can disconnect and move it away from your sleep zone.

    May 24, 2017 at 11:38 am Reply
    • Heather Willoughby

      If mycotoxins sweat out of you and contaminate your clothing, will they contaminate anything else that you wash with it? Having a hard time suddenly deciphering between a chemical reaction and a mold reaction. Any good articles that explain how mycotoxins transfer?

      May 31, 2017 at 8:15 am Reply
      • Ana Harris

        Hey Heather,

        Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot of hard science about how mycotoxins behave, at least not at the minute quantities that hypersensitized people have to worry about. What we do “know” is based on gathering lots and lots of anecdotal evidence from mold hypersensitized patients. Your sweat can definitely contaminate your clothing but my guess is that washing it with other things is probably okay as long as it’s not a particularly awful contaminant. Though I’ve heard stories of people contaminating their washing machines which is a big reason a lot of serious Mold Avoiders do their laundry by hand. Washers are especially prone to mold growth as well.

        May 31, 2017 at 2:00 pm Reply

    Leave a Reply to Heather Willoughby