Overcoming toxic mold
BUTLER TWP — Chesna Tomko could feel something wasn't quite right.
Usually bubbly and carefree, a smile always wide and beaming on her face, the sophomore on the Butler girls track and field team felt depressed, anxious and not at all herself.
“Depression is one of those things where you feel you're never going to get better,” Tomko said. “Everything is awful.”
At first, it was chalked up to good old fashioned teenage angst. But Tomko knew better.
The culprit was surprising. Toxic mold.
It had blossomed in the family's Butler Township home for years, covered up by drywall in the basement and unknown to them for the entire eight years they have lived there.
A rash on the face and neck of Tomko's father was the first physical sign something was amiss.
“We live in a 100-year-old house and there was mold growing on the walls in the basement that people just plastered over,” Tomko said. “We didn't know about it. It's in our bodies.”
Tomko and her family are on a strict diet and supplements aimed at ridding their bodies of the toxins and mold spores. It's been three months and Tomko is, for the most part, her cheerful self again.
She's back on the track — she ran a leg of Butler's second-place 3,200-meter relay and a leg of the winning 1,600-meter relay at the Butler Track and Field Invitational Thursday night — but admitted she's nowhere near the form that saw her qualify for the PIAA championships in four events last spring.
She missed the first four Butler meets of the season as she was recovering.
“Honestly, my first meet I was crying a lot because I was so nervous getting back into it,” Tomko said. “I'm really glad I'm back. I'm really glad I'm getting stronger.”
But Tomko said she doesn't wrap her worth in what she accomplishes on the track.
That belief was reinforced by what she has gone through during the last three months.
“My identity isn't track or how fast I can run,” Tomko said. “It's in Jesus. That's one thing going through all of this — the toxins mess with your mind a lot. It's been strengthening our faith. We'll be healthier the rest of our lives.”
That begins with that cleansing diet.
It's a radical departure from what Tomko had consumed in the past.
“Vegetables. Lots and lots of vegetables,” Tomko said. “We have to eat less (carbohydrates) and no sugar or grains. It's hard to eat as as an athlete because you have to carb-load. It's been difficult.”
Tomko said all signs of the spores and toxins should be out of her system in another couple of months. She's trying her best to get back to the form of last season when she was among the top freshmen in the WPIAL.
“I hope so, but because of all the changes, I don't know if that's going to be a possibility,” Tomko said. “Indoor season I was feeling pretty good and ran as fast as I did last indoor season, so, hopefully, I'll be able to catch back up.”
