Sick Boat Syndrome

[Guest guest]

Since the IEQ group is talking about proximity to salt water and

mold growth, I got this old story out.

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I have encountered a few cases of " SBS " over the years:

Sick Boat Syndrome!

Seven years ago I stepped on board a classic wooden yacht in Santa

Cruz and got slammed - so I stepped off just as quick.

When I started asking the owner about any peculiar health

complaints, he told me that he did have a strange problem that

somehow seemed to be associated with the boat.

He said that he had married the most terrific gal. They had been

friends for years and she had a terrific personality - and that she

was everything he could have asked for in a sailing mate... until

right after she moved on board: Blinding headaches. Personality

changes-moodiness, depression, anxiety, you know, " The Works " .

Not only that, but she physically fell apart too.

Strange illnesses and infections, weakness-fatigue photophobia,

migraines, rashes, temperature intolerance... etc.

" She turned from my dream girl into my worst nightmare, and it

started after she moved on this boat " .

Finally she became so ill that she could no longer work. She was

diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and the doctors could do

nothing at all to help. Even beyond that, her complaining had become

incessant and intolerable - " Just a constant Witch " .

The doctors had told him that her problems were mental illness, and

he said that it must be true, and that somehow the " closeness " of

the boat had somehow keyed into a weird form of emotional

instability, just as so many people seem to go absolutely crazy on a

long voyage in a small boat.

The upshot was that they realized that this situation on this boat

and their life together was over and done - no longer survivable.

He was really torn up and confused about it.

" I thought that I had found the perfect person to have great sailing

adventures with, yet it seemed that being on a boat turned her into

the total bitch from Hell. We could have had such great adventures.

Why would she do this to us? " . And so she was moved out - almost

carried - to some relatives who took care of her in her semi-invalid

condition.

After a time, her problems started to slowly go away.

The Yachtowner said, " At first, I didn't even want to have any

contact with her - after what she put us through. But it was

strange - as if her old self started to emerge. But how can I trust

it? What is to keep her from doing this again? " Then, " This

confirms that the doctors must have been right, this is proof that

was the boat, and that she had mental problems brought on by the

small living space on board. I guess some people aren't emotionally

suited to this lifestyle and it brings out mental illness " .

Here was another perfect example of how the differential in

individual response to toxigenic mold breaks up relationsips and

destroys lives - and the process of " life implosion " and destruction

is obliviously aided and abetted, supported, increased and

exacerbated by doctors who unwittingly put the total blame for the

problem upon the sufferer and never look for the real cause - and in

so doing, cause any support or sympathy for physical illness to be

dismissed and disregarded.

I explained that I am a " mold responder " and that the problems his

wife had were exactly what would have happened to me if I stayed on

that boat for any length of time. I told him my story of how much

the same thing had happened to me.

It was amazing to watch " The lights go on " as I recounted example

after example of what this illness does, and why people act the way

they do.

He was also amazed that all the doctors knew absolutely nothing

about this, and he felt ashamed and remorseful for the way he had

willingly gone along with the doctors and blamed his wife as

a " mental case " , when she had just been describing a physical

reality of mycotoxin induced illness.

This is the savage brutality of what doctors are doing to sick

people.

Sufferers go to them for help, and instead are literally insulted

and battered into submission, - and even worse, the doctors

pronouncements undermines any symptathy that was built up in

witnesses to the illness who KNOW that the person they knew simply

wouldn't invent anything as crazy as this.

Thanks to the credibility automatically accorded to doctors,

observers of the illness overlook the clues they can so plainly see,

and suppress their vague contradictory thoughts that " this cannot be

right " - and withdraw support from people who desperately need and

deserve it.

Everything I said, resonated with this man, and I could see the

comprehension growing of the full burden of the injustice that had

been done as he realized that everything she had described is

exactly how mold illness really is. I asked " Now that you know, and

that if she manages to recover and can avoid mycotoxin exposure,

there is a good possibility that she could be the original person

that you used to know. " but he said " No. This was Hell beyond

belief. I couldn't take that chance. It's all over. "

More dreams destroyed. What a senseless waste.

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