We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for a little slice of chaos.

So I set out in January to start writing our story from the very beginning. (See The Very Beginning and Not Knowing.) It’s something I’ve wanted to do for the longest time and just hadn’t been able to up until now. And it still isn’t easy. I have to make myself sit and focus and “go there,” because it’s so much easier to do just about anything else. Some days the house gets really clean (though it never stays that way for long).

But this is what always happens. My earnest plans and intentions are sucker-punched by something entirely out of my control. It’s the story of my life since having children. Or more specifically, since having Isaac. I suppose every parent can relate, am I right? But good God, enough already. 

Sunday

Last Sunday was a fantastic day. We got up and went to church, then drove downtown and grabbed a casual lunch before seeing a matinee of “Les Miserables.” (Now that I’m thinking about it, that’s ironic.) After the show, Todd had a patient to see in the hospital. We dropped him off there and ran over to a nearby HomeGoods, where I bought some soap for our sinks and an extra utensil holder for the kitchen. 

At that point it was time for dinner, and we’d already decided we would top the day off at PF Changs, which is also near the hospital. We thought it would be a low crowd, but there was actually a bit of a wait. Turns out they were short staffed. Dinner took for.ev.er, but it was delicious. We had a great time and even talked about how grateful we were to have this kind of day. It was long, but we had fun together. And most importantly, it was peaceful. We spent time together as a family without any episodes of dysregulation or rage, which wasn’t even possible a year ago. 

We’d left home just after 9:30 that morning, and we arrived back home around 8:30 that night. Todd went straight to our room and let Murphy out, as that was an unusually long time for him to be in his crate. We’d picked up a Whole Foods order on our way home, so I was starting to unload the car. And all of a sudden, Todd started screaming, “Ann!!! Ann!!! Ann!!!” 

I thought maybe Murphy had thrown up a sock or had a an unfortunate accident in his crate, but no. Todd had stepped in water when he walked into our primary bathroom, and there was water dripping on his head. Before we left the house, Isaac had told us that the toilet in the guest room upstairs was clogged. (That happens all the time.) But apparently, it was also still running. For 11 hours. 

That’s right, the toilet flooded the guest bathroom upstairs and took out our primary bathroom downstairs with it. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

The backstory

Todd‘s reaction was visceral. He was freaking out. And if you know any of our backstory from the past four-ish years, you know why. Here’s the short of it:

We learned through bloodwork in the fall of 2019 that Isaac is especially sensitive to mold. We did a whole home inspection which led to remediation in Isaac’s bathroom and in our kitchen, most of it due to a leak from Isaac’s sink upstairs down through the kitchen ceiling when he was five years old on Christmas Day. That’s right. A leak that happened seven years prior. A leak for which we called in the experts with the fans and the whole nine yards. We thought we’d done everything right.

Within days of starting remediation, we got Isaac’s PANS diagnosis. At the time, he had high blood titers for an infection, which likely triggered the onset of PANS. But mold and other environmental toxins can also trigger PANS, we learned, and contribute significantly to the devastating cycle of illness. All of this to say, we knew we had to take water damage and mold very seriously.

This was in February 2020, right before March 2020, and we all know what happened then. The pandemic era started at our house between remediation and build-back, which meant we lived with half-open walls and missing cabinet doors for about six months before we felt comfortable allowing a masked build-back crew in our home.

In the end, we updated our kitchen and made the whole house more “us,” but it was a long, stressful and expensive experience. We were so relieved when it was over, and I was ready to close the “mold chapter” and never look back. 

Round two

But just two years later, in the summer of 2022, we saw a water stain on our second-story ceiling. We called in professionals immediately and discovered that our hot water heater had been leaking for some time. The damage trailed from the second story attic through the wall that separated our guest bedroom and stairwell, all the way down to our office on the first floor, which we had just recently repainted. We tried to stay on top of things from the beginning and had a water remediation crew in the house as soon as we found the problem. A few days in, they discovered mold but failed to follow the proper protocol for treating it. We had some tense conversations and were prepared to switch companies mid-project but learned that such a move could jeopardize our insurance reimbursement, which we just couldn’t afford to do. 

The process dragged on and on, and ultimately, we had to move out of the house for three weeks while remediation and build-back were completed. The re-build included sheetrock, flooring and paint, some of which we had just redone two years before. It was a two-month-long nightmare. Again, I couldn’t wait to close that chapter.

The hot water heater leak was a year and a half ago.

So now you know the backstory for Todd’s reaction. We just can’t be going through this again. But here we are. 

Round three – Friday

Thus far, the process has gone more smoothly than the last one. And I suppose we know a little more about what to expect. But it’s still hugely inconvenient to have part of our house out of commission and to have to coordinate schedules and services with the water remediation company, insurance adjuster, mold inspector, and construction contractor. We have had a crew in our house every day since last Monday, complete with the army of fans and their deafening roar. The downstairs fans went away today, thankfully. And fingers crossed, the build-back downstairs will have started on Monday, the day before this post.

Suffice it to say it’s not the most conducive environment for writing, if I even had the time.

Maybe I’ve said it here before, but I started my time as a mother with the intention of staying home with my kids. Not because I think every mother should do that, but because it made sense for where we were in life, and because I wanted to. But somewhere along with the way, with all of the challenges that came with our Isaac, it became clear that I couldn’t work. With all of the pressing medical appointments and calls home from school, I would have lost my job if I’d had one. And any thought that I had of doing something professionally died all over again with Covid. Each episode of water damage feels like nails in the coffin. 

I could go on about my day today, how Todd got called in to the hospital even though he had the day off, and I had to take Isaac to the blood draw that Todd was supposed to field, how the appointment that should have taken 30 minutes took over an hour and a half and we still didn’t get all of the blood we needed, about how angry I was driving Isaac 45 minutes to school afterward, feeling like I would never own my time. But you get the point. This is our life.

And right now Isaac is doing really, really well. There have been times when we were in a mess like this and Isaac was unwell, which is a whole different level of crisis. In those days, we were literally “on the threshold of hell,” to quote Clark Griswold in “Christmas Vacation.” We’re actually in a good place right now. It’s just that taking care of everything falls to me. That’s how it is. I’m the mom. 

Perspective

I’m feeling pretty salty right now if you can’t tell. But there’s nothing like a little perspective.

A few days ago, the owner of the water remediation company told me as he was leaving the house that his worker who was staying behind didn’t speak very good English. He said I could call him if we needed to communicate, and he would help. I told him that was no problem and that I spoke a little bit of Spanish, usually enough to get by. 

A little time passed, and the gentleman asked me if he could have some water. We tried our best to have a conversation, him in broken English, me in broken Spanish. I gathered that he is from Venezuela and has only been in the US for one week. I told him welcome and tried to ask if he likes it here, and he responded, “It’s my dream.” He is cleaning up the leak from our bathroom and it’s his dream to be here. 

Gray colored glasses, indeed.

By the time this round of work is finished, we will have remodeled/redecorated most of our house. Much of it has been under circumstances I wouldn’t wish on anyone, but the fact remains: We are fortunate to have the home and resources that we do. So even as I lament this latest interruption, I know I have plenty to be thankful for, including quite possibly the cleanest indoor air anywhere in the greater Houston area.