The Flog – The Fabry Log

We finally took the plunge yesterday and hired an enviro company to test the entire "old" house. We believe this information will help us determine what will need to be done to make the home habitable again, or if we will need to simply destroy it.

I've kept the electricity off for most of the home, still running the fridge, but cutting off the gas and water. It's been this dark behemoth on a hill. The lights in the garage burned out a month or two ago. So it was eerie watching two people in Tyvek suits and masks wander through the kids' rooms taking samples of the carpet and doing air tests. This company believes the other two remediators did not find the true source of the problem so their testing is more extensive and more expensive. Funny how much a "t" and a "p" can change a word (extensive, expensive). But, as Andrea told me, this is information we really need in order to move on with our lives. Even if we lose that money by being told, "Destroy it," I won't regret it. At least we'll know.

I stood by Kristen's room and saw her favorite cover on her bed, and all the books on her bookshelf. I saw DVDs in the downstairs family room, near a TV. The couch down there was leather and was a favorite of Pippen and Frodo. They would climb up on the back of the couch and sleep in the sun until someone came to the door and then they'd be off, running and barking through the house. Even after Pippen went blind he loved to climb up there. That was the first piece of furniture we bought for the house, as I recall, eight years ago. It had been moved downstairs because of a newer, better colored couch we'd purchased in the past couple of years, but my heart longed to just sit on that couch and drink in the memories. The friends who had been with us there, the movies we'd watched together, the "discussions" we'd had there. The tears, laughter, blood, soil, sweat... Maybe that was Winston Churchill's couch before we bought it.

I went around back to look into the kitchen. It was just like we left it in October. The phone lying on the kitchen table. Homework there. A vase of fake flowers. The oven and the refrigerator were almost new, and it pained me to think of all the work we'd done. All the new carpet. The decorating and painting. It's really a gorgeous home with one problem. It was killing us. Slowly, yes, but it was killing us.

I talked with Andrea yesterday and thanked her for being the one to choose truth over illusion. Sometimes the truth is harder to believe than the illusion that everything is okay. She knew in her gut that something was wrong and wouldn't stop until she found answers.

Now we're in for a battle with the health insurance company over coverage. They've denied us coverage for the testing and the doctor we're seeing. We'll appeal, of course, but it's one more hurdle in a long line of hurdles to discover the truth and act on it.