Been sick for a month. What's wrong with me?
Discount Medical Scrubs
I've been sick for over a month now. For two and a half weeks it was like a horrible cold, coughing non-stop,runny nose, constant high fever, dizziness, nausea. Then I got a horrible ear infection in each ear and my sinuses were clogged up and I still had a fever. I haven't had a fever over 99.5 in almost two weeks now, but I still have a bad cough, the ear infections, and the sinus congestion. I've been taking the antibiotics, Amoxicillin, for almost two weeks and it hasn't helped much. The ringing in my head when I talk stopped, but my hearing is still very muffled and it still hurts, just not as bad.
If any of this information helps, I'm 15 years old, I go to a boarding school where the work-study program put me as a janitor, so I clean bathrooms (gross bathrooms) every day which involves scrubbing toilets, cleaning puke, scrubbing moldy (both black and green mold) showers, and using a lot of cleaning products. My dorm provides thin cleaning gloves, (which I change often throughout cleaning), but no masks. About a week before I got sick, I had to scrub a bunch of thick, black mold with a dirty brush for an hour. The mold ended up all over my skin and hair, and probably in my lungs.
Please don't just tell me to see a doctor, I've already done that and I don't have medical insurance, so I really don't have the money to go again. Thanks,
I'll go to a doctor if ABSOLUTELY NESSICARRY. Like life or death neccisarry. But that's it. All I want to know is what could possibly be making me so sick/what I had/have.
AMEN, Mark X, but I don't have the money for a doctor, so I sure as hell don't have the money for a lawyer. Plus, I'd have to go to the doctor to prove the school got me sick... which brings me back to the money issue "/
I clean the dorm bathrooms. But they're just as disgusting, if not more disgusting, as public restrooms.
Tags: amoxicillin, black mold, boarding school, cleaning products, discount medical scrubs, dizziness, dorm, ear infection, ear infections, green mold, high fever, janitor, medical insurance, money issue, nausea, public restrooms, puke, runny nose, sinus congestion, sinuses
March 14th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
I also cross-posted this in your other thread that links back here…but I wasn’t sure where you were looking for answers.
First, there is no practical way to rule out the possibility that mold exposure is making you sick without consulting a professional, a doctor. At this point you should be looking for a good one…not some school nurse or urgent care clinic hack. If you’re 15 years old, you’re a minor, and there are perfectly good ways of getting you medical care, regardless of insurance. If your school isn’t competent to help you with that…you should be suing them, and your parents for sending you there.
(I am guessing from your history that you are here in the US. The situation will vary in other counties.)
Mold exposure symptoms like yours are fairly uncommon but not impossible and potentially quite serious. Alternatively, you may have a nasty virus, which isn’t going to respond to anything except time, or you may have a bacterial infection that is not responding to the Amoxil. In any of these cases, a month is a long time to stay sick. You need to get a second opinion. Waiting may be dangerous, but at a bare minimum it is making you miserable.
A lawyer at this point would be premature, solve the medical mystery first, and then come back to the legal issue. Until you have some handle on what’s making you sick, it’s hard to say what legal action might be appropriate.
You might need a lawyer for this: If you’re being asked to clean a mold-infested area without proper safety equipment, it is reasonable for you to refuse. Janitorial staff should have access to eye-protection, preferably goggles without ventilation if the risk is mold, and proper respiratory protection. (I can get disposable N-95 masks at Home Depot for less than $1 each, this is not an unreasonable daily burden on the school.) The gloves are probably adequate, unless they’re so thin that they break routinely. You mention changing them often, so the glove situation is probably acceptable. Don’t go in threatening; it just makes you sound like a nut, try simply raising your concerns to the people in charge first. There is a good chance this can be resolved without a major conflict if you can show them the modest costs of addressing these issues.
Here’s hoping you get to the bottom of this soon and can start feeling better.
March 14th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
perhaps you should go and see a lawyer and take legal action against this "school" that has made you scrub toilets, clean puke and mold…that’s probably what made you sick. It does not sound like any sort of useful education I’ve heard of
Edit: find a legal firm that operates on a "no win, no fee" basis. That way, it costs you nothing up front. Perhaps they can sue the school for your medical bills, loss of education, legal fees and punitive damages.
March 14th, 2011 at 12:33 pm
Well you need a blood culture done to see if the mold is making you sick. Heck the fact that you’re cleaning public restrooms is enough……
See if you can eat some garlic and drink plenty of fresh squeezed lemon, lime and grapefruit.
If you can……do this daily.
Hope this helps…..