The bogus name had to come from somewhere. Good thought.
Anthrax victim perplexed, but she's unafraid11/01/01
By KEVIN SHEA
Staff Writer
HAMILTON -- She is strong and has no fear of the anthrax germ that gave her a nasty sore on her forehead.
"I'm not afraid. I'm on treatment, it's OK," the Hamilton Township accountant said yesterday. "The skin anthrax is not something to be afraid of, just go to your doctor (if you develop a sore)," she said.
But the mother of two and now a grandmother is also demandingly private and hopes to quickly resume her "normal life" in Hamilton Square, where she lives, and her job at a local firm, where she has worked for 13 years.
"I just want to go back to my life. I want to be normal and I just want to go about my business. That's all."
The 51-year-old woman who has skin anthrax broke her silence yesterday, but the interviews she gave were with the condition that her name not be used.
She is the only anthrax patient in New Jersey who is not a postal worker and, she says, that baffles her as much as it does the bevy of public health and law enforcement investigators on the case.
"I'm just a simple person. I don't go anywhere. I don't do anything out of the ordinary. I don't have a clue," she said.
It started small, she said, something on her forehead she noticed in the mirror on Wednesday, Oct. 17.
"Under my bang. I saw it. I said, `Well, that's not right.' "
She thought the stresses of her daughter's wedding, which was that upcoming Saturday, was the culprit.
But then she noticed her lymph nodes were swollen, so she went to her doctor that day and was put on Cipro. Two days later, on Friday night, the sore "seeped," and she attended her daughter's wedding with a bandage on her head.
The next day, Sunday, she went to the hospital.
For the next week, she went through a series of tests, and even had her friends look up spider bites on the Internet after a doctor suggested an arachnid had bitten her.
It could have happened, she said, because she'd been doing a lot of cleaning around the house in anticipation of wedding guests.
When she saw a picture of what a black recluse spider bite looked like, her reaction was: "That looks very much like the wound on my head."
"But now they say, `No, I didn't have a spider bite, I have anthrax,' " she said yesterday, incredulously.
She learned officially on Monday that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed a biopsy of her lesion was anthrax. She accepts the finding, as bizarre as it is.
"I'm still, sometimes, in denial because I had three tests taken on it prior to the biopsy and those three tests came back (inconclusive). It's hard to believe."
Now that she's been living with skin anthrax, she wants the public to know it's not a horrible infliction, provided it is treated.
"If you see a lesion or anything odd on your skin, just go to your doctor immediately and have it checked out," she said. "I don't think it's anything to be alarmed about. I know some people are afraid, but it's not contagious. Just be cool."
It's not terribly painful either, she said; it was more of an annoyance. "I was fortunate," she said. "I just had some discomfort, but you know, I was not ill."
The toughest part was being in the hospital. "I didn't want to be there!" she said.
The woman is wondering herself how she came in contact with anthrax spores.
Asked if she has any theories, she said, "Not at all."
She said when the FBI tested her house Tuesday she was asked where she opened her mail at home and where all the phones in the house were. She said yesterday the results of the tests on her house will be back at the end of this week.
"I am calm," she said. "I am not worried about it at all. (The sore) is getting small, it's healing. The stitches are out, I feel fine."
She expects to be back to work at Civale, Silvestri, Alfieri, Martin and Higgins on Kuser Road next week.
Her friends and loved-ones have been wonderful in the past two weeks, she said. "I just thank them for the support. My friends have all called and people I haven't heard from in years."
(Also from the Trenton Times.)
Wonder why the FBI wanted to know "where all the phones in the house were."