Headaches, Coughing And A Hard Fall

September 2, 2002

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September 1, 2002

By HILARY WALDMAN, Courant Staff Writer

At 38, Kim was at the top of her game.

She had worked her way up from clerk to a high-paying professional job with

the state tax department. She was raising her children in a large West

Hartford apartment and could afford the payments on a new car.

That was until March, when her coughing became so violent and her breathing

so shallow that she filed a workers' compensation claim and went home to

recuperate.

' slide began with headaches and dizziness that once caused her to

black out at work and fall out of her chair. Coughing and shortness of

breath sent her to the hospital once, thinking she was having a heart

attack.

Even after the doctor told her she had asthma refused to accept the

idea that something in the building at 25 Sigourney St. might be making her

sick.

" I was thinking this can't be the building, it doesn't make any sense. "

But every time she returned to work she got sick again.

Her job was jeopardizing her health, but the alternative - life at home on

workers comp - meant hard times for her family.

, who says she made $50,000 a year at the tax department, saw her

income drop by $800 a month under the insurance program for people injured

on the job. And the checks came in sporadically, she says, making it

difficult to guarantee rent payments on time.

To stretch the money, moved her two daughters and two grandchildren

into a one-bedroom apartment in Hartford. She exchanged the new car for a

cheaper used one.

" I had a nice home in West Hartford. Now I'm living in a dump, and I have a

crappy car that just died on me, " says .

She was too sick to continue the courses she was taking toward a bachelor's

degree, but says she is most upset that her 10-year-old daughter had to

transfer to a Hartford school recently listed among the worst in America.

In July, went back to work in a tax department satellite building in

Wethersfield and hopes she can recover enough to finish her bachelor's

degree and find another job.

" They've already taken my lungs, " she says. " What else can they take? "

SEE entire series on mold and health effects at http://www.ctnow.com/

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