The Flog – The Fabry Log

We went out to eat last night in celebration of one year on the road to recovery.

Oh, the difference a year can make. If you had told me last year in July or even in September that our family would leave our home, lose most of our worldly possessions, and live in five different houses in two states, I would have said you were crazy. No way. Can’t happen.

It did. And we’re still going through the fallout. I am still paying on the laboratory bills our health insurance didn’t cover. The legal battle over the house continues. The lawyer for the other side called our case “frivolous.” I guess that’s a lawyer’s word. It’s not one I would use about our situation.

Those first few days of vacating our home were shocking. Neighbors rallied around us. The manager of the hotel gave us a break on the two rooms and our church paid for a few of the nights there. When we found a house to rent, I took everything we owned and moved it in less than five minutes. All we had were in Kohl’s and Walmart bags and some food.

There were many tears and questions. We had no idea what was ahead. I remember telling the kids about our pets, Pippen and Frodo. That part I haven’t really dealt with. They still haunt me. I’d put my head down at night thinking about them, not knowing what the next day held, praying for the strength to get up and do the work I felt God had given.

I continued working in the office in our garage, opening the garage door with the opener I kept in the milk container outside the front door. I’d change into the full chemical splash suit each day and walk inside, hoping the room wasn’t contaminated. I wrote the rest of June Bug in that room, wading through the story with the plastic crinkling around me. I did the daily radio show there as well. In December, upon the request of friends who cared, we tested the room and found high levels of toxins. I left it and all the equipment. (The radio stuff was later cleaned and salvaged.)

In January a friend loaned me his pull along trailer that we parked in the driveway. I did the radio show from there that month, then moved all of our mattresses and a few belongings to Arizona to meet with Andrea and the kids who were getting treatment. The house had recently been sprayed inside with pesticides and we lost those mattresses. We lived in hotels for three weeks and finally found a small house we called our own for a few months.

This has been a long journey and none of it has been easy. The treatments in the early days, drinking the clay and taking the prescribed medication did strange things to our bodies. The mold inside has done even stranger things. Psychologically we have been traumatized and just the thought of mold brings reactions.

However, on this anniversary, I’m thinking of some good things that have happened. All of us are together. How would that have ever been arranged? All of us are progressing. The children are able to actually read again and do school (though the teacher comes to our house and puts on scrubs before she begins). We’re not in the “fog” that we called our lives in Colorado. We don’t have resolution on the home in Colorado and all the stuff inside, but we do have a place to stay that is big enough for us and we even own a couch and loveseat. Though we feel alone, we know we have friends who pray for us. We have had so many people send gift cards it’s ridiculous. I still have many we haven’t even touched.

My son, Reagan, is playing baseball. The ringing in his ears has lessened somewhat. He’s still dizzy, but there have been times in the past few weeks of driving him to practice or games when I almost feel like a normal dad.

There are actually moments in the day when I don’t worry about the bills and what lasting effects the mold will have on us. I treasure those moments because it’s so easy to slip back into unbelief.

We haven’t arrived. Many days are horrific. Symptoms return. Andrea is caring for all of the specialized meals and the herbs/supplements and she sometimes gets so exhausted she can’t function. The kids have intense nosebleeds. They miss their friends. They miss Pippen and Frodo. They miss a “normal” life.

Throughout this past year I have felt God walking through the fire with us. People from his family have given and given. I have learned God’s grace is sufficient and I have to cling to that every day. These events have caused me to be more aware of the pain of those around us.

This is not the life I signed up for, but it is the life I have been given. And by God’s grace I will live it to the full today and pray that He gets the glory for anything good that comes from this journey.

After all, Jesus said that he came to give life. He came to give it abundantly, overflowing, springing up from someplace deep inside. That kind of life can’t be explained by merely pulling yourselves up by your bootstraps. It’s not something you can do on your own. It’s given. My job is to receive it. That’s my new full-time job.