It's been a week of major upheaval in the Brooklyn House of Akcin. For those of you on the internal radar, this will be a bit of a repeat. For all the rest of you, you will be surprised to learn that we are getting ready to move. That's right: after countless home improvements, renovations and rearrangements, we are sad to report that we will be leaving 22 Strong Place behind. We won't be looking back, either.
The reason for our sudden abandonment of our home of three years is simple: Aydin's health. Last Monday Aydin took a routine blood test mandatory for all children in NY State. That test determines lead levels in the body. Aydin's blood registered a iron level of 16, which is the minimum level considered lead poisoning by NY State. Needless to say we left the apartment as soon as we found out... and finding out is a story in and of itself. So here goes...
Last weekend we went down to DC to spend time with Nana / Jo Anne, see Hilary and Cinar, do some Georgetown shopping, and go see Nick Cave at the 9:30 Club Monday night. It was to be a nice, long weekend full of festivities, such as a visit with Elissa and Henry and the Turkish Cultural Festival. Well, our hopes for most of the fun were dashed by Aydin's display of extreme resistance to all things nap-related. All you parents know that an infant's adequate sleep is key to a successful day (or night). In retrospect, I'm fairly convinced that she was reacting to the MMR shot she got the same time we had blood drawn. Nevertheless, the days were rough and tumble and we ended up scrapping a lot of our plans (hosca kal, Turkish Festival...). Aydin made the best of it, though, falling hard for all of Nana's awesome toys and thoroughly enjoying her long strolls around Cathedral Heights. She particularly liked playing her VTech synthesizer (complete with drum kit!) and listening to the choir rehearse at the National Cathedral. All in all, it was a fun weekend, if a little tiring for all, given Aydin's intense resistance to sleeping in the beautiful crib Nana bought for her.
We were wholly unprepared, then, for the FIVE messages on our machine waiting for us in Brooklyn from various folks at the pediatrician's office. The messages were hard to make out; on one we heard "health inspector," on another, "little Aydin" (pronounced "Aiden"), and yet another, the shocker, "lead in her blood." I picked up the phone in a panic and called back; it was after hours. I called the emergency number and got Dr. Pytlak. (Irony of ironies: Ozan actually spoke to Dr. Pytlak on Sunday to ask a question about Aydin's crazy nap refusal... and nothing was said about the lab results.) The doctor broke the news, prefacing it by saying, "AYDIN IS GOING TO BE FINE, WITH NO LASTING HARM."
All the same, it was disquieting when she told us not to allow her to crawl on the floor, put comforters down all over the place, roll up the carpets, etc. She told us to clean the apartment top to bottom with Spic and Span, including the stroller, and to discard any toys made in China with painted surfaces. She asked if we owned any antique furniture (yes) and if they were painted (no). She said that this happened more frequently than you might think, due to where we live (Brooklyn, NY) and the average age of brownstone-covered townhouses (100+ years old). She made my husband promise not to let me get on the computer and type in "lead poisoning." She told us she knew of an empty apartment one block over; she mentioned corporate housing. We were reeling; what did all this mean, exactly?
Long story short: we spent Tuesday night at the Brooklyn Marriott. It cost us more than a night at the Waldorf Astoria. We downed a plate of $20 bran muffins Wednesday morning, stopped by the apartment briefly to throw a few additional items into our already-packed bags (thanks to the DC trip) and put Aydin and me on a plane to North Carolina.
Ozan, of course, had to stay at our potentially toxic apartment to contact a lead assessor and the health inspector, who came today (Friday). We won't even mention the ticket Ozan almost got accidentally driving the wrong way down a one way street in an attempt to park the car in a garage (since we couldn't find on-street parking, of course). It's hard not to dwell on the tears, the shouts of rage, the incredulity of why on earth the doctor's office didn't call us on our cell phones. Not to mention the shock, disbelief, concern over Aydin's health, our feelings of shame, vulnerability, personal incompetence, helplessness, homelessness, and panic... Add to it the uncanny coincidence of the stock market plunge and you've pretty much got The Week From Hell in a nutshell.
More about what the lead inspectors found in the next post.
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