Thank You for the reminder on Histoplasmosis, I believe it is a serious medical concern that is often forgotten about. Endemic initially to what is considered "the Ohio River Valley". We had the fortune to live on an old farm in Ohio for a few years when I was younger, no livestock, one lonely cat, and every farm building you could think of coop, barn, corn crib, tractor shed, woodworking shed, older farm house. They had not been used for farming for 20 years. Somewhere along the line in cleaning the place up and gardening, not sure what the source was, my young mother contracted histoplasmosis (I understand it can live in the soil for many years). It initially appeared as being a case of pneumonia and was treated as such when she went to the E.R. gasping for air, and high temp. After several weeks of not resolving, a doctor, who was not from the area, diagnosed her. In the end she developed lesions on her lung, and it had damaged her eyes. Yes, for many years and possibly now I believe (haven't read the lastest medical journals on it) the medical community believed that if you contracted it then you would only get it in either of those 2 places and rarely both. The outcome, lesions on her lung that had to be monitored 2x year minimum for the rest of her life to measure the size of the lesions to watch for increase in size. Her vision was seriously damaged in both eyes, (the eye doctors loved to examine her because they rarely get to see such a think first hand). We used to lovingly say, blind in one eye and can't see out of the other. Laser surgery was attempted in order to help correct the damage, the result of that was devastating, she lost all but a small pinpoint vision in the one of her better eyes at the time. She continued to loose vision in her other eye through the years. We lost my mother, my best friend, and farming mentor 5 years ago to cancer. She had gone for her routine check up including the chest x-rays and all was the same, no changes in x-ray or blood work. 30 days later she lay dying in a hospital bed. We never got to find out the primary site of the cancer, the doctors were focusing on trying to treat the aggressive cancer that had spread to her heart. The were unsuccessful, and she died 6 weeks after her diagnosis. My siblings and I feel that, in a remote way because of the changes in cell structure that her histoplasmosis played a part in her death. She was in her early 50's and as active and healthy as ever and teaching my children the art of gardening and loving the outdoors and planning for her day to get to have chickens on their 10 acres. I apologize for this being so long, but I wanted to share how something so small, and seemingly unimportant can change a persons life for the rest of their life. All the poking, prodding, testing she had done on a regular basis to monitor her histoplasmosis was not always enjoyable and loosing her vision had an impact on her life as well. My hope is that like the OP, others will give thought to this when they care for their birds, a simple small micron mask can go a long way in helping to prevent contraction. I would hate to hear that one of the new found BYC buddies had contracted this. To the OP I am so glad that you are slowly getting better, and the other posters who have known someone who contracted it my hearts are out to them. Though I will not live in fear of it, I do believe I will wear a mask when cleaning the coop, though it is not known to be in our area, to err on the side of caution is always better. Thanks for letting me ramble. Ferngully
