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Valley fever hit epidemic proportions last year and experts are wondering if 2002 will be a repeat.

If the disease infects anywhere near the same number of Kern County residents as it did in the early 1990s, the cost could be staggering. During the epidemic years of 1991-93, valley fever costs mounted to more than $56 million. A similar outbreak now could mean even greater costs.

Researchers are making progress toward a vaccine, but the going has been slow. The Californian examines the impact of the disease and the efforts of those ìFighting the Fever.î

Valley fever's personal toll: a widow reflects

Sunday June 23, 2002, 12:00:00 AM

Courtesy of Cheryl Youngblood Cheryl and Michael Youngblood at their daughter's wedding in June 1996. He was diagnosed with valley fever in November 1997.

Many people do not realize that valley fever is an expensive and painful disease that can kill.

My husband, Michael S. Youngblood, was diagnosed with valley fever in November 1997 when he came down with pneumonia. Although he received treatment and returned to work in February 1998, he became ill again in August, received treatment and returned to work in February 1999.

Three weeks later, he became violently ill with Coccidioidal meningitis, which is spinal meningitis caused by the valley fever disseminating into the spinal fluid.

Although treatment helped keep the meningitis under control for a while, he eventually suffered several small strokes. My children and I watched him deteriorate until he finally passed away in January 2001. He was only 49 years old.

Although this disease has been studied for the past 100 years, it is a disease that has remained impossible to control and difficult to treat.

More than half of the people in California live in, or frequently visit, areas in which the disease is endemic. The development of a vaccine is considered the only realistic way that this disease can ever be prevented.

Sadly, my husband was even a participant in the early vaccine trials that were held in the 1980s. Hopefully, this time the results will be more favorable.

The work being done to develop a vaccine has the potential of alleviating the high personal and economic costs experienced by the residents of California. I know firsthand how expensive the medication for it can be.

My husband's prescription for a three-month supply of Diflucan was $7,000. That does not include the other medication for it that was administered intravenously three times a week, or the charge for a doctor to inject the medication directly into his spinal column when he contracted the meningitis.

Try to imagine the personal agony of watching your smart, healthy, happy husband of 30 years (or your loving father) waste away physically and mentally until he is finally gone forever. Let's hope that the current research will yield the results we need so that no one else will have to suffer like my husband did.

Please continue to keep the public aware of the need for continued funding for a safe vaccine to prevent valley fever.

-- Cheryl Youngblood

Cheryl Youngblood of Bakersfield is a teacher's aide in the Panama-Buena Vista Union School District. Before he became too sick to work, her husband, Michael, was the quality control director of a local manufacturing company.