Stories

I've been in Michigan for a long time, first in Bloomingdale, and now I've been in Otsego for about eight years. RockTenn is almost across the street from our house, so we're not quite on the river. The river is a little tiny walk away from our house.  

I have two daughters whose health has been impacted, but I’ll start with myself since my story’s shorter. I used to have periods that lasted three days, super light. Now, since moving to Otsego, they’re very heavy and last seven to ten days.  

My daughters were fine. They were happy, they were ridiculously active, like tomboys. They would roll down hills. My daughter didn’t have brakes on her bike and she would lay it down and she never bruised. They would get cut and it was just normal.  

Now, we were told by our doctors that if they get cut, they might never stop bleeding. We have quick clot, which is a powder we put on cuts. Our instructions are for bleeds over ten minutes to put the powder on it to stop it and then go to the doctor. We've been safe so far. We haven't had to use it, but we still have it in my car, my husband's car, and their backpacks because they're cheerleaders. My daughter is also a welder at school. She's a welding cheerleader.  

My younger daughter, her legs are what we call “cheetah printed” because they're so bruised up from constantly slapping her hands on her thighs during cheerleading practice or walking into tables. They're just totally bruised up, and she bruises black bruises, dark, black big bruises. So far, we don't have to be scared about her clotting, but we give her an iron supplement.  

My oldest is the opposite, she's the one who over-bleeds. She had a period that lasted four and a half years—all of COVID. It was very heavy, to the point that we were putting blankets under her to sit on the couch. We didn't know at first, we just thought mishaps happen when you aren't used to having a period. Bleeding through is normal, it's okay. Then it just got worse and worse and worse. She woke me up crying one night because the blood in her bed looked like a movie massacre. 

I took her to another doctor, and they said it's normal and she was fine even though she hadn’t stopped bleeding in six months. I asked if we could try birth control but we were told no, because she was only 12 at the time and it wasn't good for her.  

Then we went to another doctor, a female doctor this time, because I decided we weren’t going to see a man anymore, we were going to see a lady because they know better. She's the one who ultimately said, “You know what? I think it's von Willebrand disease (VWD), but I don't know, so don't quote me on this. Let's draw some blood.” 

And we drew blood, so many vials. I've never seen anyone get this many vials. The first test was seven. The second test was ten, then finally 13 vials. The syringe was big, about as wide as a quarter. I wish I would have recorded how much blood was taken from her.

The doctor started her on birth control, which lightened the period, but it didn't go away. I thought that was weird. Then they had us skip the “period” pills (placebos) for three months. At this point now we're two and a half years into this solid period and the bleeding is just so horrific. This poor kid. Finally, the birth control started kind of working where the flow was super light and she wasn't having to change herself every hour. But then something would happen within her body and she would just start bleeding everywhere again.  

She was a freshman bleeding through her pants. She had to quit cheering because she couldn't jump. She couldn't run. She couldn't bounce. She couldn't do anything that would cause bleeding. It changed her life. She couldn't exercise because every time she stood up from the couch, she was bleeding through.  

So, we went back to the doctor and I said, “I'm not leaving here until you figure out my daughter, because I can't keep doing this to her.” Then we went to the hematologist. You know how expensive a hematologist is? To sit in that room, it was about $400 and then they just took more blood. They took even more blood from her. They're the ones who thought it was VWD at first. Now they don’t think it is. We don't know what it is. I'm just crying. I'm crying. I'm missing work. What’s wrong with my baby? It just didn't make sense.

We had to do the surgical IUD. She's had it in for a few months now, and it still causes cramping. It hasn't gotten rid of her period, but it has lightened it up. And it does go away, so she's not actively bleeding all the time anymore, and her period is a lot lighter. We still don't know what is causing this. They just said that they think it's environmental.  

We live a pretty healthy life. We raise our own meat birds, so we're not eating as much grocery store meat. We grow our own vegetables in raised garden beds, so we're not eating from the ground in Otsego. We make our own bread, so we're not eating bread from the grocery store. We're trying to cut out as much of the toxins as we can. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I need to fix my kids, and I don't know how else to do it, so we've been making pretty big changes. We built a greenhouse so we can try to grow all year with raised beds.

I think my husband was tired of me crying so we bought a water filter that was $8,000. We have the water that's filtered at the supply, and then we have a second filter at the faucet, so what we drink is filtered twice. We haven't had it too long, so I can't really answer whether we’ve seen an improvement in our health.

I have a neighbor that will not consume the water. She buys bottles of water, and she's got custody now of three kids, and she doesn't allow them to cook with water. It’s always been the joke with people from Otsego: “Don't drink the water, you're gonna grow another eye!” “Don't fall in the river if you're walking! Don’t even put your shoes in the water!” Everyone jokes, especially the kids. They don't use the drinking fountains at school. My daughter said that boys will put their hands in the water and throw it on people like they’re going to get a rash from it. I don’t know anyone who's gotten a rash from it, but my kids fill up a 30-ounce water bottle and that's what they limit themselves to drinking for the whole day at school.

My daughter knows three unrelated people in high school with autoimmune deficiencies. I've never known anyone with an autoimmune deficiency and I grew up in the city where I went to huge schools. That's not normal. My daughter has another friend that has Crohn's disease that is just not healing. She's lived in Otsego her whole life.

I don't know if I trust the people in charge of Otsego. I think Gretchen Whitmer needs to know what’s going on here, but they haven't done anything for Flint. Flint is still terrible. I don't think we're quite to where Flint was, but I don't think we're that far. We may not have rashes, but we do have other things.

Why did somebody who lived in Chicago bring this to a head? I love that Mary Zack did that, but why isn’t our government in Otsego more interested in what is happening? You took that office. You should have answers or you should be actively trying to get them. I don't blame the current people in office for the existence of the problem, but I blame them for not caring.

I would like to have the government acknowledge it, just acknowledge it and give us an exit so we can get out of our house. I would also like testing on our kids and recognition of their illnesses.