Tag Archives: Mold

Van Living with MCS/ES

Marie’s an artist with severe mold sensitivity and MCS/ES, and has created an amazing slide show and photo  exhibits to raise awareness about the plight of people with environmental sensitivities and environmental illnesses, despite living in a dilapitated van, having to travel to the US for our winters because it’s too cold in a van here in Canada.

We really don’t have accessible housing for people with severe MCS/ES. I have several good online friends living in vehicles now because there’s no accessible housing. Marie is one of them, and she needs a reliable new (to her) van really soon, so that she can continue to live and create the beautiful, challenging, and awareness-raising art she lives for.

Life in a specialized van is hard enough, but it’s not at all safe in the old one she’s been trying to maintain the last few years. The old van has come to the end of it’s life. She has been harassed by unscrupulous men a number of times when the van broke down, and she deserves better than this from our society.
Let’s make sure she receives what she needs. No contribution is too small. Likewise, no donation is too big if you have more than you need.
Can you please donate, share, and ask the people you know to donate and share too? The world needs Marie!

New Photography Exhibit in May with a Special Video on May 12th

“Air on the Side of Caution”

From Arts AccessAbility Network Manitoba:

On May 1st, 2020 Marie LeBlanc’s Exhibition, “Air on the Side of Caution” will be available to view in full on AANM’s website (aanm.ca) and we will be posting one image from the show everyday on this event page.

 

Guest Post from Marie LeBlanc:

Continue reading

Video Discussions about Environmental Illnesses, “Sensitivities”, and Disability

It’s not often that we hear people discussing chemical and environmental “sensitivities” and other environmentally linked chronic health problems and disabling  conditions, or how they relate in the bigger picture.

Two such discussions have taken place in August of 2019, and you can watch the videos below.

Continue reading

If Only You Could See

Guest post and art from Gloris Smith Young 

You look at me
You look away

I see it every day
If only you could see

This could be you
Instead of me

Continue reading

Endangered Human Art Project: Bringing Awareness to Chemical Sensitivity

WHO Says We Need Fresh Air?!

Guest Post from Marie LeBlanc

Bringing awareness to chemical sensitivity
Marie LeBlanc at the Centennial Concert Hall in Winnipeg. May 12th 2017.

I am an artist  in Winnipeg who lives with multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and environmental illness caused by mold exposure. My art has been in relation to multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS)/Environmental Illness (EI) and toxic environments.

“WHO says we need fresh air?!” is a series of quotes from sufferers of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, Environmental Illness, Mold Exposure, Electrohypersensitivity Syndrome, Lyme Disease and other conditions related to Chronic/Complex Immunological Neurological Diseases.

The art installation was on display during the evening of Fri. May 12, on Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)/Environmental Sensitivities Awareness Day,  outside the Centennial Concert Hall (with a few quotes displayed on the indoor screens), and is dedicated to my friend Eliana from Mexico.

Continue reading

MCS/ES Awareness Day Projects: Request for Submissions

Marie Leblanc, an artist from Winnipeg who is living with MCS/ES herself, is compiling information and statements to put into an MCS awareness project. There are two  ideas  to contribute to.

The easier one is to share  shorter personal statements about your life with MCS/ES and related environmentally linked health conditions,  which will be projected onto walls in a way similar to the photo below.

 

The other project involves answering 6 questions:

Continue reading

Why I LOVE Having Environmental “Sensitivities”

Guest post

In all of this I don’t have a permanent place to stay and paid rent to a landlord who won’t fix anything, my apartment insurance cut me off and won’t help with my possessions, my medicare health insurance is not covering the health aspect and my one doctor wants me to see a doctor out of province which is not covered, and my social assistance did not pay me my disability this month, and family does not understand any of this….At this point I have nothing to lose and everything to gain….I AM MOVING FORWARD!

~ Marie LeBlanc, Manitoba, Canada

brick-walking-8-abcde

What I Wear In Bad Air :: D.R.B. and M.C.

2016 D.R.B.

“I never leave home without a scarf to wrap around my face. To give me a hands free quick exit.”

~ D.R.B.

2016 M.C.

“This is me cleaning a mouldy wall in my apartment after a flood in February.  I was wearing all 3 – nasal filters, a disposable R95 (mostly to keep gas mask plastic off skin), plus the P100!  Thankfully, I didn’t have to stay and was able to move into a mold-free unit, as one became available.”

~ M.C.

To learn more about masks see

Continue reading

MCS/ES and Mental Health

Living with MCS/ES creates challenges that seem unimaginable to most people. Despite some progress (more awareness), due in large part to so many more people being affected, the barriers and obstacles to living in the world as it currently is, can be never-ending when there is industry generated denial that everyday chemicals (or wireless) exposures are hurting and disabling people.

dinner time“Remember, don’t talk or breathe when you take your masks off to eat”

It is exhausting to have to constantly ask for accommodations just to be able to exist in a world where safe solutions are often hard to find, or when they do exist, they are not affordable. It can be like living in a world that wishes we’d just go away and leave them all alone, yet… there is no safe place to go away to…

Is it any wonder then, that people develop mental health problems?

When health problems (mental or otherwise) related to circumstances and experiences arise, one is (usually) only truly helped by people who have an understanding of the issues related to the circumstances that are connected to the problems. When that understanding doesn’t exist, appearances can create erroneous assumptions that perpetuate the kinds of harms that caused the problems in the first place.

For people with MCS/ES, exposures can  trigger temporary or long term brain and behavior issues that look like mental health problems to people who don’t know how toxic chemicals, molds, food sensitivities, or wireless exposures can affect our brains and bodies. And sometimes we are capable of doing some things, yet completely incapable of doing others, as exposures can affect different parts of our bodies and brains, and for varying amounts of time.

What people also don’t understand, is that when we are able to live free of those exposures, we can be free of the brain or behavior problems the exposures cause.

Finding ways to access goods and services without being subjected to disabling levels of exposures can take 10 to 100 times more effort than people normally have to extend for the same goods and services. Sometimes, despite our best efforts, we cannot safely access the goods and services everyone else takes for granted. These challenges can mean we may need to turn to others for help with survival and coping , yet not only is it difficult to receive practical support,

new research  also proves that access to knowledgeable mental health care providers is rare for people with MCS/ES!

 

“When asked to evaluate their provider’s knowledge of MCS on a scale of “not knowledgeable”, “somewhat knowledgeable”, or “highly knowledgeable”,

Continue reading

Can’t You Hear Me? Why Can’t You See I Need Your Help?

Guest post by Kelly N.

The Scream by Edvard Munch

The Scream by Edvard Munch

It’s the most heartbreaking thing when you realize that you have no one…. zilch zero that will help you!  All you are is a stranger in a strange land with no one hearing your plea.  All the faces look around and stare at you like you have no face, no meaning.

Continue reading