It just seemed like another day… I was on a trip to Ecuador and Peru with my family when it all started.
We were spending the night in a hotel in Quito, Ecuador. The town was located at 10,500 ft and started to feel sick. After 48 years, my health had always seemed to be ok except for a few small items, so I just assumed that I was feeling ill because of the altitude we were located at.
In hindsight I can recall that they had been spraying lacquer in the hotel. But that didn't seem too weird to me since I was in the construction business and had smelled lacquer many times in my career.
When we left that morning and we continued travelling I was quite sick for the next 5 days. We returned from our trip and I thought I was fine for a while but I kept feeling bad.
As a typical man, it took a while but I finally gave in and went to the doctor. The doctor’s orders were that I needed an asthma puffer.
A few weeks later our house was flooded along with thousands of other homes in our city and being that I worked in the construction industry, I was incredibly busy fixing my house and many others at the time.
I spent days visiting houses of friends and clients but I seemed fine. That is until we starting ripping houses apart rebuilding. A big component of the rebuild was using mold inhibitors, some serious chemicals to try to limit mold growth.
I remember looking out my window and could see the dust in the air – outside. With all the demolition, drywall, spray insulation, painting, lacquering that was going on, I knew this wasn’t healthy. So I sent my family to stay at another house, out of this environment.
I was so focused on helping rebuild these houses, but I felt awful. I would go into homes and start to shake. I couldn’t talk, move, breathe. My skin hurt, I had headaches and I just wanted to know what has suddenly happened to my health. This wasn’t just asthma.
I saw specialists for brain, lung, chiropractors, naturopaths, acupuncturists, food specialists, physiotherapists, reiki. I took different supplements, tried superfoods, exercise, saunas, bought and used infrared saunas. I tried hydro therapy, and meditation. Thousands of dollars in treatments, lost time at work for all the doctor’s visits, not to mention the stress of not feeling better even though I was trying everything I could find. I was a professional GOOGLER. With no answers.