3 in family dead, 4th sickened from respiratory illness

darleen Clark on March 6, 2012 at 9:56 pm
My 33 year old sister died on Tuesday morning in BWMC (old North Arundel) she got sick over the weekend was coughing up blood by Monday and died 4:30 am Tuesday. Hospital said it was pneumonia. but It happened so fast. sounds just like what these people had

smnewsnet.com...-4439

I am just going to stay on this story a bit longer.

This comment was from yesterday. The author did not come back to give more details, so it's anecdotal, but I did mapquest where Old North Arundel is in comparison to Lusby(where the family died) and they are about 72 miles apart, and both places are in Maryland.

Anyway, it's a bit stretch to say they are related flues, but thought I'd post it here for posterity.

ANother Comment from someone regarding this case:

How strange, the medical supply warehouse I am temp accounting at just shipped a ton of stuff to five different hospitals in that area. The customer to be invoiced was a third party llc who did not show up on any google search and we even changed our payment terms to make this shipment per the owners demands who insisted it get done. just for them on a next day 16 pallette shipment that gave guys overtime. I did not even think till i saw this thread. connected? They paid a pretty penny and this warehouse is not that sort of high volume. Oh we do blanket PO's but not like this. This was all sterilizing and respiratory gear. Totally last minute. From what i could tell, we did 30% of our annual business just today.

tickerforum.org...

Originally posted by HawkeyeNation
Crazy # going around. My 10 month old son has been fighting a respiratory illness damn near all winter long. He had to be hospitalized back in Oct of last year. Got better then sick again bout a month later. Took him to pulmonary specialist and got him on some meds for a good month. He got better but just in the last week he's been hit again. I had walking pneumonia the last 2 weeks and finally had to go to the Dr. and he put me on an antibiotic for 2 weeks.

My Theory is with such a mild winter all the germs that normally get killed with our cold winters was able to stick around this whole damn winter.

I have noticed from your posts that we live in the same area. I know a lot of people here who are unusually sick with the same thing. Not life-threatening sick, but far sicker, and for far longer, than they usually get with the flu. I agree that, at least around here, it seems to be related to the weird not-winter we're having. Insects and pollen have been present all year; same thing with the germs, and for the same reason. The natural world just hasn't gone into the suspended, deep freeze condition that we usually have in Jan-Feb.

reply to post by juliebeth

Here in South Africa,in Mpumalanga Province,there's also a thing going around.I had to take my 5year old son to the doc on Tuesday,he woke up in the night with an awful croup-sounding cough.It turned out to be bronchitis,he got liquid antibiotic and seems to be much better now.But the doc told us the Medi-Clinic is so full of sick kids,he had to get some beds from the adult wards,they are all down with a realy bad flu.No chemtrails out in the bush,or over the town,though,we dont get that here,at least not in this part of South Africa.

Ive had a realy,realy bad cold,almost as bad as a flu,but no body aches and pains.It started off as a severely blocked nose,for 3 days,and a brutal cough,lots of phleghm coming up. I treated myself with Vicks Vaporub,raw garlic and orange juice,tea and aspirin,chicken soup and ginger tea. After 3 days the blocked nose turned to a runny nose,and i felt weak and very tired through-out.Much better now,though im still coughing up phlegm.

reply to post by SunnyDee

I never get the flu vaccine, I get terrible side effects, and I have not gotten the flu in 20yrs. Until now, been really sick for about a week. Did a little research and found that the predominant strain in our area is H1N1...ring a bell?
I don't think its related to the family that died but I find it really interesting that the flu that was going to kill us all a couple of years ago is now only a side note.

I think probably the family in the OP succumbed to perhaps a combination of things. Flu, Legionairres and/or maybe mold. Time and science will tell.

reply to post by FissionSurplus
Sorry of this has been addressed already but I haven't finished the thread yet. Detrick is in northern MD and Calvert is in southern MD, with a lot of land in between, including mine. If this were from Detrick, me and Isis (short form for screen name of another ATS member from MD ) would have keeled over first.



I've posted this before, the mold situation is crazy where I live. I don't know if that relates to anything but my job as a housewife and an aquarist in the past couple of years to combat mold has become really grueling and time consuming. I'm at my wits end on it. It's not my house, I go outside and see it everywhere. I see trees suffering with fungal infestations. I think all this mold is weakening everyone and making normal illnesses become chronic.

My family has stayed ill off and on with nasty respiratory illness for a couple of years now. I've survived childhood bouts of meningitis, two bouts of encephalitis and grew up in a smoking family and even I have never had the kinds of long bouts of severe respiratory sickness my daughter has had to be repeatedly treated for. My husband and I don't smoke, we eat organic produce and meat, I clean house well, and we all exercise regularly. My daughter and I visit the doc regularly and are generally quite fit except I have autoimmune problems and she keeps getting sinus problems and flu and long bouts of "colds". Nearly all of her classmates are on some type of allergy medications.

I grew up in MD and as far as kids health used to be concerned, allergies were far less common. Everybody got the flu and colds, of course, but to have it seem so chronic and long lasting was almost unheard of back then. I knew of only ONE kid my entire time in school who had the kind of chronic respiratory congestion I'm
seeing in the majority of kids now.

Now this Calvert case of illness sounds like something a bit exceptional. It is outright killing people who have had normal contact with each other. Mid fifties isn't that old! Actually if you think about it, it's a good age to be because people that age have caught just about every common virus, yet they aren't so old as to be frail yet.

I'm going to keep my eyes out for any more mass deaths in the Chesapeake Bay. It would be interesting to note if they've got any unusual fungal blooms or bacterial blooms going on. It's usual to have these things, so it would have to be an UNusual report to matter.

Originally posted by jaguarsky
reply to post by SunnyDee

 

I never get the flu vaccine, I get terrible side effects, and I have not gotten the flu in 20yrs. Until now, been really sick for about a week. Did a little research and found that the predominant strain in our area is H1N1...ring a bell?
I don't think its related to the family that died but I find it really interesting that the flu that was going to kill us all a couple of years ago is now only a side note.

I think probably the family in the OP succumbed to perhaps a combination of things. Flu, Legionairres and/or maybe mold. Time and science will tell.

edit on 8-3-2012 by jaguarsky because: changed content

edit on 8-3-2012 by jaguarsky because: (no reason given)

ok. H1N1 was a threat because there was no vaccine at the time for it.

That is why pandemics are dangerous, they are new diseases with no vaccine. H1N1 was a deriviative of the spanish flu which killed 50 million people.

Just because there weren't bodies lying about doesn't mean that it wasn't a huge cost to the government and a burden to the health system, it was a problem.

But a lot of it was curtailed because they hopped on the vaccine and got it developed in record time. It is now in all new vaccines, which makes it less threatening.

Flus change their genetics. Bird flus like H1N1 are flu type A. Teh one that affected these people is flu type A. The problem with bird flus, unlike other ones, is that they can change quickly in a hop, as opposed to others that just evolve.

Originally posted by The Sword
reply to post by getreadyalready

 

I've been battling a barrage of flu symptoms for 5 days now.

Started with a sore throat, then developed into a nasty 102 degree fever with frequent cold chills, runny nose, watery eyes, fatigue, wooziness, stomach pain and a horrible cough.

I'm not 100% yet but I'm well enough to work and I'm hoping the worst of it has passed.

I have never gotten flu shots either.

That sounds like a bug I caught several months ago and recurred again a few weeks ago. The stomach pain has recurred since the first bout. I'm not usually one to have problems with my stomach. Just as I'm about to schedule an appointment, it goes away then it comes back weeks later. I hope you feel better soon.

You, too, Sugarcookie. I have read your other posts on ATS and know you suffer a lot.

reply to post by nixie_nox

ok. H1N1 was a threat because there was no vaccine at the time for it.

That is why pandemics are dangerous, they are new diseases with no vaccine. H1N1 was a deriviative of the spanish flu which killed 50 million people

H1N1 was a farce to justify renewing millions or even billions in emergency funding at a time when emergencies were in short supply. After 9/11, Katrina and the Hurricanes of 2005, there was emergency funding out the wazoo, but by 2008 the need for it was starting to dry up and budget cuts were looming. I worked for the Dept. of Health at the time, and our "Department of Emergency Operations" (DEMO) was looking at drastic cuts and layoffs, but then miraculously, this H1N1 appeared, and next thing you know we were renting spaces to store vaccines, buying mobile units to administer vaccines, and funding an advertising campaign to warn people how important the vaccine was!! The first morning of vaccinations, they were expecting long lines, and they had police presence at each location to quell any disturbances, and then......... nobody showed up! Instead, at the end of the year, they threw away MILLIONS of dollars of expired vaccines.

Luckily for people in Emergency Management, tornadoes and floods have taken the place of hurricanes and pandemics, so their jobs are secure for awhile.

Originally posted by sugarcookie1
I'm in Minnesota i live is a small community and it seems like everyone has the flu right now and its a weird one the systems are sore throat ,headache,earache, nasty cold with a horrible cough and tummy problems im fighting it right now with antibiotics and most have it a week or more then it goes away and comes back i cant rember having anything this nasty.. I ended up doing a evisit so i didn't have to go into the Dr he just sent the script to the pharmacy i was to sick to get out of bed the antibiotics are helping but i still have it and its been 2 weeks i could see how someone could die from this its that bad..

Uhm I must be very nearby, small town MN. My kids and their mom have been sick for over a week. I just started getting the body-ache, coughing/congested thing. Great.

$10 says their Vitamin D levels were really low.

2nd line.

Originally posted by momeees
Here on Long Island, NY my youngest daughter has had the respiratory virus for about a week. Out of 19 children in her class, 12 of them have it. Eight were out sick Monday, including my daughter. It's hard to shake and the cough is awful. My husband has come down with it, also. I'm kind of glad I'm at work ... away from all the germs. Mu children's pediatrician's office is packed with the same illness.

Please get Vitamin D drops ASAP and drink plenty of filtered water (make sure there's no fluoride in it).

Good luck.

Whatever is going around it is fierce. We had family down in FL at the end of December. Within 4 days all of us had the stomach thing. No less than a week later the sore throat started and then the cough. One by one everyone that was here in December fell ill with the same symptoms. I had the cough for six weeks. My spouse had it for just as long. It wasn't the flu. Docs called it an upper resp infect. It was the worst 8 weeks of health I have ever had (stomach bug to lung bug double wammy). My co-worker STILL has "the cough" and she was sick at the same time as me in Jan.

Originally posted by HawkeyeNation
Crazy # going around. My 10 month old son has been fighting a respiratory illness damn near all winter long. He had to be hospitalized back in Oct of last year. Got better then sick again bout a month later. Took him to pulmonary specialist and got him on some meds for a good month. He got better but just in the last week he's been hit again. I had walking pneumonia the last 2 weeks and finally had to go to the Dr. and he put me on an antibiotic for 2 weeks.

My Theory is with such a mild winter all the germs that normally get killed with our cold winters was able to stick around this whole damn winter.

Well I'm back in the hospital again

Apparently 2 of the deaths have been from an H3 strain of Influenza A.

Testing by the DHMH Laboratories Administration has confirmed that two of the cases had Influenza H3, a strain of Influenza A that has been circulating this season.

The above comment from the DHMH press release updating the Calvert County, Maryland death cluster is carefully worded and does not say that the H3 is seasonal H3N2, and may in fact be H3 from H3N2v. The state labs can only do PCR testing, which can produce a pattern (seasonal H3 and H1N1pdm NP positive) that is suggestive of H3N2v, but confirmation requires sequencing (which is done by the CDC).

www.recombinomics.com...

I read that this strain has a high mortality rate, someone said 50%. Just a comment, and I can't find a number to back this up.

Here is a thread from January regarding this H3N2v strain.

reply to post by SunnyDee


Perhaps it's confused with this? rt.com...

Or the alleged natually occuring H5N1:

"The median age of patients with influenza A (H5N1) virus infection is approximately 18 years, with 90% of patients 40 years of age or younger and older adults underrepresented.16 The overall case fatality proportion is 61%; it is highest among persons 10 to 19 years of age and lowest among persons 50 years of age or older. 16 Whether preexisting immunity, differences in exposure, or other factors might contribute to the apparently lower frequency of infection and lethal illness among older adults is uncertain. Most patients with influenza A (H5N1) virus infection were previously healthy. Of six affected pregnant women, four have died, and the two survivors had a spontaneous abortion.17"

Source:
www.nejm.org...

reply to post by Azadok
sorry to hear that ... My sister-in-law died 2 weeks ago from pneuemna induced heart attack ..

We all ahve had that "crud" here in Southern Virginia. I was hit by the regular flu and then about a week later I got this intestional bug where I violently threw up. I mean like "Monty Python" movie .... It has taken about another 3-4 weeks. I am just getting to where I am feeling better.

Hope you all get well and feel better ...

Oh, the only meds I took were for the un-controlable squirts.

reply to post by fnpmitchreturns

I am so very sorry for your loss. That's horrible. It's kind of you to wish everyone well while mourning your own loss.

I wish I'd never accidentally come across this thread, it does tend to linger in the back of my thoughts as we come down with what is likely the usual seasonal crud. My daughter and I took ill very suddenly yesterday. Respiratory crud. We were fine and then within hours, she complained of throat glop and a head ache. I felt strange overall and woke up coughing up a mix of glop and blood from my sinuses and nursing a headache. My daughter seems to have recovered already though and is bouncing around the house, thank goodness. I on the other hand feel like I got run over by a truck. I'd go back to bed but I've got too many chores that just have to get done around here. I'm taking a break but then will be pushing myself back up to finish my work.

Whatever it is, it's not like the usual flu or cold. Neither of us had a runny nose as with colds or allergies. No fever or chills happened thus far. Just fatigue, a vague tingly feeling all over, and all this goop suddenly blocking our sinuses and throats up. The tingly feeling of the nerves makes me wonder about a herpes virus kind of like chicken pox or shingles. That's the only kind of virus I as a layman know about that affects nerves.

Im still sick and can't seem to kick this im in bed more then im up its just makeing me so tired its hard to even make it to the bathroom and back to bed anyone still have this also?
peace,sugarcookie1

reply to post by sugarcookie1


Sorry to hear how sick you still are, Sugarcookie. As the day progressed my throat and sinuses cleared up a lot, rather shockingly fast, I would say, but I've been kept close to bed or sofa with severe headaches that pulse a bit and pains that shoot up and down my legs and my arms to my fingertips. My husband has not felt well all day either but in a generalized way, vague fatigue and achiness all over for him. We did have to force ourselves to go out to buy groceries, and felt bad out there, too, so we know it's not something in the house making us sick.

Whatever this is, it's an odd virus and not following any usual progression or timeline I'm used to.