In Memory of Lexie

I am writing this story in hopes that someone reading it will please ACT and educate people about the dangers of toxic mold.

Our daughter was born in September of 2001. She was happy, healthy, and a joy to all that knew her. She passed away forty-three days later due to toxic mold. I can not even begin to relate the horror of waking up to kiss your daughter good morning and finding her dead. We did not realize at first what had happened. I believe someone was trying to say it was SIDS. Our family had horrid symptoms, headaches, nausea, abdominal pain, strange sensations of choking in our sleep, loss of memory, heart palpitations, dizziness, anxiety attacks that lasted for HOURS, insomnia cycled with the inability to wake up, and many others too numerous to mention. Everyone told us that it was “grief” I had never experienced anything so horrible in my life so I had no clue that “grief” doesn’t cause heart palpitations.

We continued to stay at our residence and through it all people kept telling me the symptoms would subside-except they kept getting worse. We noticed when we moved into the property that there was mold everywhere; ceilings, floors, walls, etc. I mentioned this to our landlord and he assured me it was nothing more than harmless mildew as he had had it checked out and to “sweep it up and bleach it” – you have no idea how many times I wish to God I had known better. A few short months after losing her our entire family started waking up covered in blood. This was definitely not from grief.

Mold is Deadly

I contacted several experts and started asking questions. I did research on the internet. I talked to anyone that would listen to me. I requested a copy of our daughter’s autopsy report and then had another expert look it over. We have since then started legal proceedings and have had extensive tests performed on her tissues. This is stuff in NOT harmless, this stuff is MORE than mass hysteria, this stuff IS DEADLY. We are taught as parents to protect our children, don’t let them play in the street, don’t let them get into a pool unsupervised, etc.

NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE told me mold would kill my baby. Some doctors roll their eyes when they hear our daughter died from this, others say,” OH yes that will kill a baby quick.” Why isn’t this information made public then?  Where are our government officials in all of this? The more I hear that mold is HARMLESS the angrier I get. It is misinformation like that that cost my baby her life and you know what? I am not alone. She wasn’t the first and sadly she wasn’t the last. Why then are doctors not informed about this? Isn’t it the governments job to protect its citizens? Sometimes I wonder. I pray that people in government will start to take this matter seriously and make it a priority. Hopefully her life, however brief, can serve as a lesson to others. MOLD KILLS and will continue to do so until our government does something to educate and protect people. Please don’t let her life be in vain.

Thank you
A mom in Texas (Lexie’s mom)

Author: Carolyn Willbanks