Kaitlyn and Miss Bobbie

I thought you might enjoy seeing a photo of our family. Two days after that photo was taken I took Colin ( a few days shy of his 9th birthday - bottom center) and Reagan (12 year old - next to Dad) to Arizona for the first time. I never expected we would re-locate. I didn't even know if we were on the right track. I was desperate. I know you can't tell. But the migraines, trips to the ER,the headaches, the dizziness, the rashes, the abdominal pain, the aggressive behavior, the chronic sore throats, the memory loss, the mood disorders, the neck and knee pain all were taking their toll. I'm sure we all look fairly normal. This, of course, was the problem all along. The kids appeared normal. To give you an example of the extent of abnormality I must tell you what happened last Friday. I took Kaitlyn to meet her new horseback riding instructor (Lisa). Kaitlyn is the 10 year-old (now 11) in the pink shirt. The first lesson was to be the next morning. Kaitlyn was beside herself with excitement. "I've been waiting for this for a long time," she told Lisa. I can't tell you what it meant to me as her mother to see that spark in her eyes. Lisa invited her to pet her horse. Miss Bobbie. Kaitlyn stroked her mane for approximately 2 minutes. The two bonded instantly. Kaitlyn again said how excited she was to come back and off we went. Within 10 minutes her eyes swelled up and welts appeared on her face. Big welts. Her breathing was affected and other rashes appeared. She didn't recover until Sunday. I called Lisa and asked about chemicals used in shampooing or treating the horses. Kaitlyn had also been around a cat. We thought about hay. Stachybotrys can manifest in molded hay. (In the 1920's a slew of horses in the Ukraine died from mold poisoning.) We agonized. Do we try to figure it out and keep trying or do we just wait. To Kaitlyn's dismay we decided to wait. Meanwhile my heart continues to break every time I'm reminded of the toll this has taken on my children.
At the same time an event such as this propels me forward in my determination to give them every opportunity to recover their life.