- The woman who developed a mysterious rash and caused
the brief lockdown of two hospitals last month is recovering at home, but
she says she's now experiencing a new kind of suffering.
-
- Ann Hawkins, 59, said the attention her illness received,
and the early fears that she contracted smallpox, scared her friends away.
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- "Now I know how they feel in one of those leper
colonies," Hawkins said. "Nobody comes by to see me anymore.
I want people to understand I'm not contagious or anything."
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- Hawkins was admitted to Cape Coral Hospital on Oct. 22
with a fever and dime-sized black sores, the origin of which still has
doctors baffled. Tests for smallpox, shingles, measles, staph infections,
adverse reaction to medications and chicken pox all came back negative.
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- But the stigma that she is contagious remains, she said.
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- "It's very, very hurtful," Hawkins said. "I
tell myself it's OK, they just don't know, but it still hurts."
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- Cape Coral was locked down for four hours after Hawkins
was admitted, until medical workers could rule out smallpox. Lee Memorial
Hospital was also locked down for about an hour that afternoon, because
it was unclear whether the paramedics who brought Hawkins to Cape Coral
had been to that facility as well.
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- Hawkins is still sick, occasionally battling diarrhea
and vomiting, and some new sores have developed since her release from
Cape Coral on Oct. 30. Most of the sores have gone away, however, and doctors
are hopeful that antibiotics and bed rest will solve her problem.
-
- "I'm still the same person I was before all this
happened," Hawkins said. "I want people to know that."
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- http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?
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- Patricia A. Doyle, PhD
- Please visit my "Emerging Diseases" message
board at:
- http://www.clickitnews.com/emergingdiseases/index.shtml
- Zhan le Devlesa tai sastimasa
- Go with God and in Good Health
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