Made in China.

We have kept something from a lot of people for a long time because we weren’t ready to talk about it until the i’s were dotted and the t’s were crossed. But quite a few of you know I’ve been very, very ill for months. I quit shooting in April and recently had to cancel all of my shoots for May and June. My processing is currently backed up through February. I have clients who are more understanding than they should possibly ever have to be. Every month I continued to be worse and no one could explain why. The ER became my second residence. The doctor’s office my vacation home. The migraines were blinding. The vomiting and nausea made me drop two sizes in a matter of days. My heartbeat became irregular. I had ghostwriters doing a lot of my “time” online to keep appearances. Then…my children got sick. One developed vomiting. The other a cough that sounded like a creature from Sea World and rashes.

Wait a minute. My kids.

So we talked with friends. Did more Googling that we’d previously done before. And bingo. We found out our home has Chinese drywall. This time when we researched it, our builder had homes with it, unlike the last time. Not only did our builder’s homes have it, WE. HAD. IT. The Florida Department of Health Environmental Health inspector said to get us and our children out…NOW. (CDC .pdf on symptoms and physical damage from the toxic chemicals.) So we did. We walked. Our dream house it took us 11 years to get into. We’re no longer in it. All our furniture. Toxic and can’t come with us. My beautiful office I designed from scratch. Crickets chirping. We’re starting over and I’m typing this from the floor on a TV tray.

We do not need sympathy. We are in a gorgeous house in the Orlando metro (NOT built during the Chinese drywall phase) right now and we have each other. This was not a fire, hurricane, flood, tornado, or earthquake. We walked out with more than the clothes on our back. Unlike families in Arkansas last weekend, we have each other. We’re hard workers and we believe in working for what we have.

(edit: paragraph deletion on 06.26.10 – thank you for the response, support, and well-wishes regarding the moving promo that was here!)

I never thought in all those years protecting our boys from Chinese toys, the very walls of their bedroom would end up being the thing that poisoned them! If you ask me how we’re doing, I’m not sure I can answer that. We’ve got each other. So I guess in shock, but thankful, pretty much covers it for now. Thank you for getting this far!