✈️ Toxic Air at 35,000 Feet: A Personal and Collective Call for Change

✈️ Toxic Air at 35,000 Feet: A Personal and Collective Call for Change

Please support our flight attendants by sharing this video for inner peace in our planes

Air travel is often romanticized—jet-setting across time zones, chasing sunsets above the clouds.
But for many of us with compromised immune system since birth, chronic illnesses, trauma histories and environmental sensitivities, stepping onto a plane feels more like entering a pressurized chamber of invisible threats.

I know this intimately. My first adult flight Nov. 29th 2018 triggered my first and only bipolar episode January 29th 2019.
I was supporting someone after our breakup—a man grieving his brother’s suicide. Another firstborn, another parentified soul gone too soon.
Post-breakup, I stood by him as he mourned his brother’s suicide.
Just like us: firstborn, parentified, carrying wounds too heavy to hold.
He discarded me in my darkest hour after mom passed and Sept. 2024,
the only time he said I love you to me.

I flew Air Canada: two large jets and a tiny, noisy plane that rattled my nervous system and choked my lungs with dust Nov. 2018.

I was already fragile—born with a compromised immune system, tonsils removed at six months and bombarded with antibiotics during the crucial first 1000 days that shaped my microbiome.
That early disruption left me with lifelong misophonia, histamine intolerance and leaky body syndrome. Add toxic cabin air to that mix and it’s a recipe for collapse.

🧬 When the Body Breaks Down: COVID x3, Collapse and Chronic Crisis

I’ve had COVID three times. The first was March 7, 2020, while staying at a hotel. I was so sick I had to isolate there for a month. Back then, no one really understood how it spread and one night I saw my life flash before my eyes, was soaking the sheets within hours. I spoke with my son for hours not knowing if I would wake up the next morning.

The third time hit in late May 2024. My ex came off a plane from Costa Rica, and within days, we were both sick. From June through July, COVID ravaged my body for six relentless weeks. But for me, it didn’t end there.

This wasn’t my first encounter with the virus. Back in March 2020, I felt its razor edge— a burning mouth and throat, chest fever and loose stools that left me depleted. I struggled to breathe, battled chest pain and drifted in and out of consciousness. My lips turned blue. My body was screaming. And when the acute phase passed, I entered the long, uncertain fog of long COVID.

Brain fog. Fatigue. Digestive issues. Light sensitivity. Sleep disturbances. It felt like my nervous system had been rewired to suffer.

Then, on June 5, 2022, I suffered a concussion. I’ve had way too many to count because of low blood pressure all my life caused by chronic stress.

The concusion, A separate trauma—but eerily familiar. The symptoms overlapped so much with long COVID, it was hard to tell where one ended and the other began. Cognitive dysfunction. Sensory overload. A brain that couldn’t find its footing.

So when COVID came for me again in 2024, it wasn’t just a third infection. It was a collision of past and present wounds— a body already battered, a brain already bruised. And still, I rise. Still, I heal. Still, I speak.

Because this story isn’t just mine. It’s a call to recognize the invisible battles so many are fighting— and to demand the care, compassion and clean air we all deserve.

On September 5, 2024, I collapsed. I was diagnosed with rhabdomyolysis—a life-threatening condition where muscle tissue breaks down and floods the bloodstream. I needed a cane to walk. My lungs and throat were grasping for air. I choked in my sleep, unable to swallow, terrified of suffocating. I went to my doctor who dismissed me as a mental health issue because the ex told him it was and the 3 hospital emergency rooms and like the 30 years before, great blood work came back as a Personal Trainer who cares what she puts into her body using food as medicine since the 80’s.

This wasn’t just COVID. It was the perfect storm: toxic air, emotional trauma, mould exposure and a compromised immune system. My body was screaming for help—and finally, I listened.

🦠 Mould in the Sky: A Hidden Threat

Most travellers worry about germs on tray tables or mystery meat in their in-flight meals. But mould? It’s the silent stowaway.
According to Howard Environmental, mould thrives in aircraft cabins due to:

• Recycled air with limited fresh oxygen

• Moisture trapped in carpets and seat cushions

• Poorly maintained HVAC systems that spread spores

• Condensation in hidden crevices and insulation

For those with mould illness, this isn’t just unpleasant—it’s dangerous. Symptoms can include respiratory distress, brain fog, histamine reactions and immune dysregulation. Frequent flyers, especially crew members, face cumulative exposure.

😷 Flight Attendants: Front line Workers in Toxic Environments

Flight attendants aren’t just serving drinks and smiling through turbulence. They’re breathing the same contaminated air, often while managing strict weight requirements, irregular schedules and limited access to nourishing food. Many suffer from histamine intolerance, exacerbated by glyphosate-laced meals and high-stress environments.

Now, Air Canada’s flight attendants are on strike, defying a government back-to-work order after failed negotiations over wages, unpaid labour and working conditions. The Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) represents over 10,000 attendants, many of whom are women doing hours of unpaid prep and cleanup. Their fight isn’t just about pay—it’s about dignity, health and justice.

🧪 Section 453: The Quiet Shield for Toxic Corporations

There’s a reason I’m speaking out, even as I face targeting and suppression. A little-known provision called Section 453, passed during the Trump administration and now resurfacing in the FY26 Interior–Environment Bill, could quietly strip away legal protections for families harmed by toxic chemicals.

Section 453 would:

• Protect pesticide companies from lawsuits, even if their products cause serious harm

• Prevent courts from forcing label updates, even when new science shows health risks

• Freeze liability at outdated EPA standards, which can take years—or decades—to update

• Block emergency EPA action, meaning dangerous chemicals like glyphosate or DCPA could stay on the market long after risks are known

This means that even if independent science links a pesticide to cancer, infertility or neurological disease, companies can keep selling it until the EPA decides to change the label—and that process can take up to 12 years.

Critics are calling it the “Cancer Gag Act”, warning that it muzzles judicial review and leaves injured families, farmers and landscapers without legal recourse.

💔 Trauma in the Cabin

For trauma survivors, airplane travel can be triggering. The noise, confinement, unpredictability and sensory overload can mimic past experiences of helplessness. I’ve flown while grieving, while supporting someone who emotionally abused me, while smoking to numb the pain. I smiled through it all, dying inside, shaking in my boots.
January 25th I was suicidal and was brought to the hospital by a compassionate police officer who saw me, the first person who saw my suffering I was keeping silent. My brain was in fire.

🛑 What Needs to Change

• Airlines must prioritize cabin air quality with regular mould remediation and upgraded filtration systems

• Flight attendants deserve fair wages, paid prep time and health protections

• Passengers with chronic illness and trauma histories need accommodations—from seating to air purification to compassionate policies

✊ In Solidarity

To my dear friends who are flight attendants:
I see you. I stand with you. You deserve clean air, fair pay and respect.
And to every traveller who’s ever felt unsafe, unseen or unwell in the skies—your story matters. Let’s keep telling it.

🔥 Cracking the Code on Chronic Illness

I’ve survived what many don’t. Mould toxicity, trauma and multi-system collapse. I now help others heal mystery symptoms like fatigue, IBS, MCAS, histamine intolerance and more. It’s not “just aging” or “anxiety”—it’s your body asking for help. I also have been addressing skin cancer the last 3 years and now it has spread.

If you’ve ever:

• Had tonsils removed before age 2 and perhaps sleep with a stuffed animal longer than most ;)

• Taken antibiotics in your first 1000 days

• Been labelled a hypochondriac

• Battled menopause, misophonia or trauma

• Felt allergic to life

Your body may be holding mould, toxins and trauma in your tissues and also why you can’t loose weight. But healing is possible. I’ve gone from:

• MS-like paralysis → walking cane free in 4 months

• Diverticulitis → 2–3 perfect poops/day

• premenopausal rages → grounded and calm

• Menopausal fire → 8 hours of sleep, fan-free

• Medical C-PTSD → no meds needed

Mission: No one expires before they desire. 🙏

With loving kindness from Canada’s capital,
Momma Lovey Dee
Each share is for my son Noah—so that even if I’m not nearby, these words can still support him when he needs them.