A Prince George woman who developed a case of Legionnaires' disease two months ago is wondering why the Northern Health Authority was not informed of her condition.
The 53-year-old office worker was surprised to learn in a story in Wednesday's Citizen that Northern Health officers were under the belief that an Edmonton-area man who developed the disease earlier this week after a snowmobiling trip to Valemount was the first confirmed case of Legionnaires in four years.
"I'm really surprised they are kind of glossing over my Legionnaires' disease," said the woman, who wishes to remain anonymous.
"I was wondering if maybe they lost my file or what. When they were saying there were no other cases in northern B.C., that's totally wrong."
Having developed a headache before she left Prince George in late October, the woman had flown to Edmonton for a conference when her flu-like symptoms grew progressively worse. She was bedridden the next day and had to skip two days of meetings. She grew steadily more delusional as her fever increased, spending a confused day in Edmonton airport after she missed a flight she'd already rescheduled the previous day. The day after she got back to Prince George, after being unable to sleep or eat for three days, she could take only shallow breaths and her husband took her to University Hospital of Northern B.C. She spent the next week in the intensive care unit being treated for what she thought was severe pneumonia.
Five days after her hospital stay, she received the call from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control to inform her she had the Legionella pneumophila.
"The man said it was confirmed in Vancouver and asked about where I think I could have got it - and he caught me right off guard by telling me that over the phone," she said.
"He said if I could think of anything to give him a call back, and I couldn't think of anything further."
While she was being treated in hospital, doctors discovered the woman's oxygen saturation level was extremely low and considered putting her on a respirator. Her mental health was also compromised by her high fever, leading to hallucinations.
"Part of the Legionnaires' disease is lapses in memory and that whole time period is kind of weird for me - it's like you're drunk and are blacking out and don't remember," she said. "You get delusional and I would talk to people who weren't there and then catch myself after that. It's quite a strange disease."
The potentially fatal infectious disease is caused by a bacteria inhaled through the air or through water vapour. It's named after an outbreak of pneumonia that resulted in the deaths of 34 members of the American Legion who attended a Philadelphia convention in 1976. The outbreak, spread by the building's air conditioning system, resulted in 221 cases. According to Wikipedia, the fatality rate of Legionnaires' disease ranges from five per cent to 30 per cent.
The woman has no idea where she contracted the disease. She doesn't like hot tubs or saunas, which can sometimes harbour the bacteria. She is a smoker and is middle-aged, which adds to the risk factor.
After missing two months of work she returned to her job in December to one more surprise.
"When I got back to work I checked around to see if anybody had been around to do an inspection... but there wasn't. I guess it was a one-off kind of thing and they don't do an investigation unless there is an outbreak."
When informed Wednesday of what happened to the woman, Northern Health spokesperson Jessica Quinn said while she was unable to get a statement Wednesday from the medical health officer working on the case, her office will continue to investigate the woman's story.
"I do want to stress that Legionnaires is not public health issue and there's no reason for concern," said Quinn. " Legionnaires is not spread person to person. It is still very rare. B.C. normally has three to four cases per year."
