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Weak, emaciated teen fights devastating case of valley fever
| Friday, Apr 4 2008 6:20 PM
Last Updated: Monday, Apr 7 2008 7:35 AM
Jacalynn Hernandez’s first full meal will probably be chicken fettuccine, her mother says.
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Valley fever is a lung disease endemic to the San Joaquin Valley, and is found in Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, Texas and northern Mexico as well.
Cause: breathing in the Coccidioides immitis fungus spores in the dust. It can’t be spread person to person.
Symptoms: Most people who are infected won’t have any symptoms. Others may experience flu-like symptoms, like fever, cough, chest pain, chills, night sweats, headache, fatigue, shortness of breath, joint aches and rash. A more serious case of valley fever can include weight loss, nodules in the lungs and blood-tinged sputum, the mucous in the lungs that comes up with coughing. If the disease has gone to other parts of the body, it can cause nodules, ulcers, skin lesions, painful lesions in the skull and other bones, swollen joints and meningitis, an infection of the membranes and fluid surrounding the brain and spinal cord.
Complications: relapse of infection, severe pneumonia, lung nodules and dissemination of the disease to other organs.
Treatment: Most people don't require any treatment beyond bed rest and fluids. Some may need antifungal medications.
Prevention: Maintaining good health will help limit the disease to the asymptomatic form.
Source: The Mayo Clinic, MedlinePlus.gov
HOW TO GIVE
To help the family, hot dogs will be sold from 11 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Thursday in front of Howard’s Barbershop, 430 Kentucky St. Donations will be accepted.
People can also donate using an account for Jacalynn Hernandez at Bank of America. The account number is 10767-68917.
Photos:
Jacalynn Hernandez's valley fever symptoms began as a sore on her nose. A year and a half later, she was being treated at the Mattel Children's Hospital at UCLA. She succumbed to the infection on Friday.
Jacalynn is fed through an IV. She and her mother, Michelle, can't remember the last real meal Jacalynn kept down, but the young patient hopes her first meal out of the hospital will be chicken fettuccini.
Jacalynn's weight has dropped to 96 pounds.
Jacalynn's mother, Michelle Melendez, stays with her in her hospital room at the Matell Children's Center of UCLA. Melendez sleeps in the chair on the left. "I went for a walk once, but I'm not from here, so I don't want to get lost."
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She may dance some and sing.
She has a good voice.
And she’ll definitely clean her room once she is well.
“She’s a neat freak,” says Jacalynn’s mother, Michelle Melendez. “If she could walk, this room wouldn’t look like this.”
Jacalynn, 17, spends her days in bed, waiting and hoping.
Her emaciated body lies limp under a blue floral hospital gown. The lights are low in her room at UCLA’s Mattel Children’s Hospital. “Grease 2” plays overhead on a television mounted on the wall.
She just waits — and hopes — for a treatment to end this.
Jacalynn has been fighting valley fever for almost two years. A former track runner, she has gone from 180 pounds to 96 pounds.
The disease, which is endemic to Kern County, is caused by breathing in a fungus found in the dust.
Melendez does not know where she could have gotten it. She doesn’t remember any particularly windy or dusty days, and the family lives in central Bakersfield, not in a new development full of construction and dust.
In nearly 60 percent of people, valley fever causes no symptoms.
In 40 percent, it causes cold or flu-like symptoms. But in 1 percent, it can cause ulcers, lesions — even death.
Valley fever has wreaked havoc on Jacalynn’s spleen, liver, gallbladder, skin, bones and blood.
“It attacks her body like cancer,” said her father, Pascual Hernandez, on Thursday. “Her immune system has shut down.”
When asked how she feels, Jacalynn offers a one-word answer: tired.
Jacalynn’s ordeal began as her freshman year at Bakersfield High School ended, says Melendez, who speaks for Jacalynn, who is too weak for long conversations.
She suffered headaches and vomiting, which lasted into her sophomore year. She then developed what looked like a large pimple or spider bite on her nose — a lesion from the disease.
Then another one popped up on her forehead.
She suffered fevers, loss of appetite, more vomiting.
It was after she was hospitalized at Kern Medical Center that she received the diagnosis.
“I had never seen it do that before,” says Melendez, who had the disease before Jacalynn was born. In Melendez, it caused only a cold and fatigue.
From spring of last year until November, Jacalynn tried to recuperate at home.
“We think she’s getting better,” Melendez says of her observations at the time.
Jacalynn was trying to study at home, but she didn’t get far, and Melendez was trying to hold down a job at Kohl’s.
“Every other night she was calling, ‘Something is wrong,’” Melendez says. “One day she is on the floor crying, just on the floor crying.”
She was taken to Bakersfield Memorial Hospital and her spleen and gallbladder were removed on Nov. 11, her birthday.
“The eve of her birthday she cried up until 4 in the morning,” Melendez says. “Her pain, she could not take it.”
Her family gave her a star necklace — she likes stars — but she hasn’t been able to wear it.
The doctors told them there was a 95 percent chance she would die on the table, Melendez says. Her parents kept that fact to themselves.
“We didn’t really say much to her,” she says.
“She’s a strong girl,” Melendez adds. “She’s made it this far.”
Jacalynn got to UCLA Tuesday. The hope is that specialists will help her gain weight and stop the disease’s spread.
Dr. David Ziring of UCLA said more tests are pending, but he doesn’t doubt valley fever is the cause. He did not want to speak about the specifics of her case until he knew more about Jacalynn.
The color has improved in Jacalynn’s face over the last couple of days, Melendez says.
Her parents also want to get Jacalynn off the feeding tube.
“She did take a couple bites of pizza, and she didn’t throw it up,” Melendez says. “That’s a good sign.”
Melendez has spent the last several days on the fold-out arm chair in the room with Jacalynn, watching TV and waiting. VHS tapes of “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days” and “The Princess Bride” sit nearby.
The family wants to get the word out about valley fever, urging people to know the symptoms and ask to get tested if they feel sick.
Who knows how Jacalynn would be today if they had known sooner, Melendez says.
“Right now I try to block everything out of my mind,” Melendez says. “I just want her to get better.”