Sandy

[Reub]

We're home again. Took dad home today from the hospital but he is very very frail. There is no one else on our block at night as we are the only ones with heat. Kind of eery.  We're getting ripped off by all sorts of contractors and I'm sure there will be more.  I have no internet except for my phone. Gumby I tried to sign up for Crowdtilt but It required a Facebook connection and I'm not sure it went through. Thanks to all once again. BTW my safe deposit box bank wants me to pick up the contents at another location and are asking for an itemized list of the contents. Should I provide it? Next I will have to have my 3 older cars towed away and reapply to FEMA for more funds.

[notsheigetz]

Survived 3 hurricane evacuations in one year in Pinellas County, Florida in 2004 so you're experiencing what would have happened to us if any of them had actually hit - except for I can't even conceive of it being COLD after the hurricane - we have no experience of that down here. What a weird situation.

[Gumby]

Gumby I tried to sign up for Crowdtilt but It required a Facebook connection and I'm not sure it went through.

Glad to hear your getting your feet back on the ground.

CrowdTilt doesn't require a Facebook account to sign up.

Steps to Register:

1) Click "Log In" in the upper-right corner of the page.
2) Right above the Facebook login, click on the words, "Don't have an account? Sign up here."
3) Fill out the form that says, "Or: Create a Crowdtilt account"
4) Click "Sign Up"

And, again, be sure to use promo code “sandyrecovery”? on your campaign.

Good luck.

[Coffee]

Godspeed, Reub.

[Reub]

Gumby where it says create an acct I see four blank lines but it doesn't tell me what to put there. I sure wish I had my regular internet
back!

[Gumby]

Nice work TennPaGa.

Reub, sounds like you might be using an old Browser. The text in those labels come from placeholder attributes and old browsers don't display them. Download Firefox or Chrome if you can!

[Pointedstick]

Gumby where it says create an acct I see four blank lines but it doesn't tell me what to put there. I sure wish I had my regular internet
back!

Here's what it looks like on a normal connection, for your reference:

[MachineGhost]

Gumby where it says create an acct I see four blank lines but it doesn't tell me what to put there. I sure wish I had my regular internet
back!

[smurff]

Reub, when you get your crowdtilt account set be sure to let us know so we can participate in your and your dad's recovery.    I hope you both a wonderful Thanksgiving.

[Reub]

I started my Crowdtilt campaign, entitled Surviving Sandy.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

Here is the Crowdtilt link: https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/surviving-sandy

[smurff]

Reub, do you have a recent photo of your father?  Like a photo made within five or so years ago.

I think if you posted it on your site (and add his name to identify it) that would make it easier for prospective donors to relate.  Ancient people can sometimes have the same effect on people that babies do--we want to reach out and help them.  Besides, people who live to age 100 are rare, and not only did he achieve that milestone, he also survived a hurricane! (or superstorm, or whatever they're calling it).

[Reub]

I have a picture of him in front of his birthday cake taken 4 days before Sandy. I'm not sure though if Crowdtilt will allow me to change the picture once the campaign has begun. I'll find out tomorrow. Thanks!

[Reub]

I am updating the picture of my Surviving Sandy campaign to show my 100 yr old dad at his birthday party just four days before we evacuated due to Sandy. I'll let you know when it is viewable. He is unbelievable!

https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/surviving-sandy

[Reub]

The picture of my dad at his 100th birthday party is now viewable at:

https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/surviving-sandy

Thanks for the advice, smurff!

[smurff]

You're very welcome.  I'm glad you decided to not give up.

I do marketing for a living, but I decided that the month of November was a good one for me to take a vacation, considering the length of time I was without power, phones, and web access. 

Another thing to consider doing:  Copy and paste your message from Crowdtilt into an email, attach the photo of your dad, and send it to your entire address book.  Be sure the email includes a link to your crowdtilt page at the end so they'll have something to easily click on.  Your email program will probably have an easy way to send something to everyone in your address book, where you won't have to cut and paste a zillion email addresses.  (But you can still cut and paste, or click boxes, if that's all you can do.)  If you use Twitter or Facebook, you can include your link on those pages, too.

Don't worry about being a spammer for this occasion, since it's an emergency.  Many people would rather help individuals than institutions during emergencies (especially in light of the annoying way certain institutions behaved in the aftermath Sandy), and your father's situation is the kind that people want to know more about.  It's a verifiable situation, so that reassures people their $ will go to the right place. 

A friend of mine who trains people to use kickstartr, indiegogo and other crowd-sourcing sites to raise money for independent films told me that one of the keys to success is to send out more than one email about the fundraising drive underway, emailing and posting the message on as many sites as you can.

Even if Crowdtilt has its own way for you to invite friends, you should still do it through your own address book.  (If their mailing system has a hiccup, you might not know until it's too late.)  Sending it to your entire address book (rather than trying to remember specific people) will mean you don't censor yourself and interrupt the flow of donations, and long lost friends, casual acquaintances, repentant frenemies, the Wall Street Journal, Newsday, etc. will hear about the story and have an opportunity to add to the pot--or alert reporters to a very interesting story about an old man whose son saved him from Sandy a few days after his 100th birthday (and now has to repair the home they lived in together). 

BTW, how is your father doing?

[Reub]

Thanks again, smurff!

My dad is home, but very frail and weak. His mental state is a little foggy. This has gotten worse since Sandy and his hospitilization. His doctor wants to put him in hospice but I won't do that. I believe that he is more resilient than people realize.

[Reub]

Today marks exactly one month since this ordeal began. The contractors were here today pneumatically jacking up one side of my home to replace the beams. I hope that Sandy drowned the termites!

[Reub]

smurff, I started a thread on Bogleheads about my Crowdtilt campaign and they banned me from their boards for soliciting.

[smurff]

WOW!  A permanent ban!  You must have really impressed them.

They do have rules, though, and they're pretty strict.  As I recall, certain august members of our own (PP) forum have had their posts deleted for not meshing with their rules.  I guess with so many members and visitors, they have to keep everyone to a strict set of topics.

I gave up posting on Bogleheads a while ago because I kept going afoul of the rules--and not all of their rules are of the intuitive, common-sense variety, as is the case on this forum.

If you want to continue participating with them, you can appeal.  (It said so on the page I found a few minutes ago related to administrative decisions but can't seem to find again.)  In any case, I wouldn't let their decision stop your campaign.

[Reub]

The appeal is low on my list.

[l82start]

They do have rules, though, and they're pretty strict.  As I recall, certain august members of our own (PP) forum have had their posts deleted for not meshing with their rules.  I guess with so many members and visitors, they have to keep everyone to a strict set of topics.

I gave up posting on Bogleheads a while ago because I kept going afoul of the rules--and not all of their rules are of the intuitive, common-sense variety, as is the case on this forum.

  i gave up on them as soon as this forum appeared, i never managed to get banned or have posts removed but some how all the threads i was the most interested in posting in and reading became locked threads... 

still in spite of the iron fist approach to modding the boggle heads have their value... i learned a heck of a lot there and even more from their book and wiki pages... 

[smurff]

I will have to check out their book.

[MachineGhost]

I found the below interview about "black mold" to be interesting and it's from Reub's favorite actress!  If memory serves, I believe "black mold" was responsible for contributing to Brittany Murphy's untimely death.

SS:  Thank you, Dr. Sponaugle.  Can you explainmold and the affects that you can predict the victims of Hurricane Sandy might experience?

RS:  Well, I worry for all of them.  Mold toxins are toxic gases produced by indoor molds. From what I see of the houses devastated by Hurricane Sandy, it will be difficult to dry out those houses, especially now as the weather is wet, cold, damp, and snow is coming.  It is my experience that hidden mold is always present in water-damaged buildings.  Most of these people will be unaware that they are suffering from gases produced by mold infestations hidden behind water-damaged walls,shower tile, and above wet ceilings. These harmful toxins go unnoticed whenmold is hidden because we cannot see or smell them.

SS:  I see… like the silent enemy.  You and I have talked before about the gene we both happen to carry, the HLA-DRBQ gene, making us more susceptible to mold and allergies of all kinds.  Will Hurricane Sandy victims be spared if they don’t happen to carry that same gene?

RS:  This is the irony:  three out of four Americans who naturally produce antibodies to mold toxins can live and work in water-damaged buildings without suffering significant demise in their health. But patients who carry the HLA gene have no antibodies to deactivate and remove mold toxins.  They develop excessive accumulation of these harmful toxins. Mold toxins are lipophilic, meaning their molecular structure consists of fatty acid molecules.  For this reason, mold toxins migrate to and deposit in the brain because the brain is the ‘fattiest’ organ, consisting of 60% fat.

SS:  What you are saying is that some of the victims will not be able to handle the toxicexposure to the mold but they won’t realize that this is the root of the problem?

RS:  Right.  Mold toxicity is the cause for many psychological and neurological disorders, including but not limited to: addiction, anxiety, bipolar II, chronic fatigue, depression, fibromyalgia, insomnia, multiple sclerosis (MS), Neuropathy, OCD, panic disorder, paranoia and schizoid syndrome.

SS:  How about your everyday conditions, like the ones my husband and I are experiencing: sinus, red watery eyes, fatigue, inflamed GI tract, unexplained weight gain?

RS:  Yes, mold causes all those symptoms and also other odd effects including slurred speech, disorientation, feeling irritable or paranoid, insomnia, craving sweets, itching nose at night, static shocks, muscle aches, food allergies, antibiotic allergies, blurred vision, confusion, very high blood pressure, Mono-like symptoms, skin rash, cystic acne, joint pain, slurred gums, tongue swelling, odd periods, stuttering, and throat closing.

SS:  It’s shocking to know that mold is that damaging.  So little is understood about mold by most doctors, but your clinic is one of the only in the country that gets it. And I know we all benefit because you, too, suffered severe mold toxicity yourself, so you are able to grasp the enormity when apatient is sitting in front of you. Certainly no one would ever connect severe depression to mold toxicity.

RS:  There are three different mold toxins associated with depression, panic disorder and bipolar symptoms - aflatoxins, ochratoxin and trichothecene. The government set toxic level for trichothecenes, the family of mold toxins produced by Stachy Botrus (known as black mold) is 0.2 parts per billion. I routinely have patients with levels as high as 3.2, which is 16 times the government set toxic threshold.

SS:  What does this do to the body?

RS:  It can cause severe anxiety, insomnia, panic-disorder or bipolar.  I’ve treated (successfully) hundreds of toxic patients who were simply diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder or misdiagnosed bi-polar by psychiatrists who remain naive regarding the effect of mold toxicity on the brain.  Most doctors will give these patients drugs like Klonopin or Xanax to calm theiranxious brains.

SS:  But when they have these anxious or over-electrified brains from mold toxins, it’s clear to me that the mold needs to be detoxified from the body, rather than medicating it with a Band-Aid.

RS:  Mold toxic brains produce excessive levels of two powerful electrifying brain chemicals;  glutamate and PEA. It is the increased activation of glutamate and PEA nerve receptors throughout the body that produces an over-electrified nervous system producing symptoms of anxiety, insomnia, panic disorder, bi-polar and fibromyalgia. Mold toxic patients experience a gradual progression as they slowly accumulate more mold toxins.  Their symptoms usually begin with insomnia, then as they spend more time living and working in mold toxic buildings or houses, their symptoms progress from insomnia to anxiety which can then progress to full blown panic disorder, and in the most severe cases, bipolar symptoms of rage and paranoia.

Probably most patients who come to my clinic have been to 20 different doctors before me and not found an answer.  Many of these mold toxic patients have traveled to multiple states and various medical centers in their failed attempt to discover the underlying cause of their severe depression, anxiety, chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia syndromes. Many developed addiction issues because of their undiagnosed mold toxicity.

SS:  It’s sad.  I presume the addiction is a result of the over-electrified brains and the patients need to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol to calm themselves down?  It’s very understandable. 

RS:  Yes, it is.  Depression and chronic fatigue can be a result of mold toxicity suppressing the production of nor-epinephrine output from the A5 Nucleus. That’s the part of the brain that produces 90% of our nor-epinephrine. This is one of the primary mechanisms by which mold toxicity causes severe depression and severe chronic fatigue. When you have a mold toxic brain, specifically the hypothalamus, it can’t properly stimulate the brain’s primary hormonal factory, the pituitary gland. Pituitary insufficiency results in hormonal deficiencies, such as the downstream hormone factories - the thyroid, adrenals, and the sex organs. Mold toxin induced deficiencies of these hormones cause inactivation of the three adrenaline chemicals causing symptoms of severe depression, lethargy, and chronic fatigue.

SS: Can mold toxicity cause fibromyalgia?

RS:  Yes, mold toxicity is the primary cause of fibromyalgia in many middle-aged women.  It causes total body pain because of the excessive production of the electrifying neurotransmitters, glutamate and PEA. The excessive inflammation is derived from the toxic load and deficiencies of the calming neurotransmitters; taurine and serotonin. This causes mold toxin induced destruction of the intestinallining, which leads to poor absorption of the essential amino acids, tryptophan and taurine.  The resulting up-regulating of electrical voltage in the body’s nervous system can be dramatic, and it directly correlates with the measured level of mold toxins.  When these women go to their doctors, they are usually misdiagnosed and prescribed addicting pain medication and drugs like Lyrica, which treats the symptoms but not the true cause of fibromyalgia - which ismold.

SS: What about MS?  I once saw two side-by-side slides. One slide was a healthy person; the other was a person with MS. The healthy cells were moving around and in constant motion, all clumped together. The MS slides showed cells that werelumbering, moving very slowly. They were not clumped together, but moving slowly, slowly, and the strange thing was the MS cells all had a white filmsurrounding them. I asked what the film was and the scientist told me it was toxins.  So can MS also be caused by mold toxins?

RS:  Mold toxins destroy the myelin sheath on brain neurons, causing the classic white spotsseen in MS.  That’s why I have created the Brain Wellness Program combined with intravenous mold toxin removal protocol to reverse damage caused by MS.

SS: Anyone reading this blog who has any of these symptoms now has something new to consider.  Maybe their diagnosis has been wrong.  Maybe they are not truly suffering from autoimmune diseases or addictions.  Maybe the cause isthat musty smell in your house or the black fuzz in between your tiles.  Up until I was affected, these signs were annoyances I thought could be handled by deep cleaning.  But now I know mold lurks deep in the roots of the house and anyone who has water damage, in particular those affected by Hurricane Sandy or those devastated by Katrina, now know that there is likely a hidden enemy in the home. There is an answer to this problem. You, Dr. Sponaugle, seem to be one of the few in this country who understands mold, its effects, and how to treat and detoxify it from the body at The Florida Detox & Wellness Institute.  I know you have already helped so many people and many more are going to be helped by this interview and the important work you are doing. I thank you for your great work.

RS:  My pleasure, Suzanne.

For more information, go to www.floridadetox.com.

[Reub]

FEMA recommended that I apply for a small business loan (even though I don't have a small business). Now the SBA is offering me funds at 3.35% for 17 years to help fix the house. Do you think that I should accept this or dip into my savings (I'm newly retired).

[Pointedstick]

Ouch. Is your homeowner's insurance company saying they're not going to pay?