Connections

A year before my dad died, he was in the hospital with what was described as a restrictive lung disease. They felt it was caused by some kind of exposure. He was a brilliant man – should have been a doctor – and was able to pinpoint the culprit as the indoor fountain we had given to them. He had been sitting next to it while reading the newspaper and doing the crossword puzzle every morning. He had been inhaling dirty water vapor. After they removed the fountain, he recovered completely.

At the June ILD meeting, Dr. Koth also mentioned that they are diagnosing a huge number of new cases of Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis in the city where my mother lives. It is in such large numbers that she began to even look at the migration patterns of birds from Mexico – the largest population of diagnosed cases.

Mom’s city is in the California valley, which supplies most of the state and much of the country with food. She often has a dry hacking cough during the planting and harvesting seasons. At night, she leaves her bathroom window opened and the sill be will have to wipe down in the morning because of the dirt collected during the night. Dirty air. Filthy environment.

When I told mom about the large increase of new cases of my disease in her city, she was worried that she was going to get it. I reminded her that one had to have a genetic pre-disposition and clearly I got mine from dad. If she had not gotten sick by now, she was not going to develop it.

Still, it is a strange coincidence.