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Well I think it must be about 7 weeks since my last post, well at least that was when I last left Spain to return to leafy Harrogate for what was supposed to be 8 days in the UK.
Only to be poleaxed by a sickness my family Doctor misdiagnosed as flu (pretty easy thing to do to be fair) which over 6 days later actually became a confirmed case of Legionnaires Disease with then a week in isolation and acute care or whatever it is called now.
Not very pleasant I have to say.
All that took several weeks recovery, and well a couple of weeks of couldn’t care less about this forum on top, before I popped in today to check what’s been going on for the last 7 weeks or so, and seems not much, looks like the forum is better off without me!
Anyway, I just wanted to remind all of you who have properties in Spain to get your A/C checked and maintained regularly, I don’t know if it was my home A/C that did for me, but I know it hasn’t been touched for way too long, and it is most likely it was from an A/C.
So… if you don’t want to have an extremely unpleasant and really quite dangerous brush with Legionnaires Disease, do yourself a favour, get your A/C serviced on time and regularly. I only found out after the all clear that as many as 1 in 10 die from Legionnaires so… if I haven’t offered any good advice on this forum to date, I can guarantee that it is definitely good advice to check your A/C.
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Old windscreen wiper water is another culprit. In a study they found that traces of Legionella bacterium were present in one in five windscreen washer reservoirs that did not have screenwash in (the additive kills the bacteria) and no traces of those that did.
Glad to read you’re now on the mend Chris!
@mark wrote:
We all have to live to see at least the next boom… 😀
Expecting to live that long then Mark? 😆
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@angie wrote:
Chris, we’ve missed getting our teeth into you, but we will go easy on you as you recuperate 😆
Well I am thinking life is just too short and I am too young to be sort of semi retired right now, so I am looking at going back to work full time and officially from January, so I will only have the freedom to speak my mind here and get beaten up a few more times till then I think.
But thanks to everyone for their best wishes, much appreciated.
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Glad to read you have made a full recovery Chris.
My husband caught Legionaires which like yourself our Spanish doctor initially diagnosed and treated as flu. He was hospitalised for 17 days and is very fortunate to have lived to tell the tale. It took him over a year to get completely well again so please take extra care of yourself.
To be fair most people wouldn’t catch this disease unless of course you are a smoker of certain maturity or have, albeit slight, other medical conditions.
When H & S investigated it was from the irrigation water we use only for our garden. According to them only aircon via cooling towers as in public buildings (including hospitals) !! is dangerous. So houses and cars are completely safe in that respect.Other places are showerheads if not via mains water, fountains in Spain and, as was mentioned previously, windscreen wiper water. The latter being something most of us wouldn’t even think about.
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As Melosine has said , unused shower heads are the quickest way of catching the disease. In our 2nd bathroom ,which is only used when our daughters come I always make a point of putting the shower head in a plastic bag which you tie around the hose , then leave it on the shower base & turn the water to full heat & leave running for at least 5 mins. You can also pour in to the bag ,chlorine before turning it on. You should never operate a shower head that has been unused for a long period especially in spring / summer, without putting it in a bag to prevent water atomisation ! The bacteria can build up & the instant someone operates the shower the atomised water vapour becomes airborne in huge quantities !
A normal indoor a/c unit should never really have the problem unless you use it for heating , when there ‘s the likelihood of the same conditions occuring. When they refer to air conditioning they are referring to water-cooled condensing towers which are mainly used on industrial & office buildings & which are required by law to be deep-chlorinated every 6 months.Glad to hear that you are recovering .
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@Claire wrote:
Great advice gus -lopez.
Yep really good advice all round from everyone I think. As ever on this forum.
Me, I played golf three times since Saturday, so I think that is the recovery officially – hopefully – confirmed as done and dusted. Thanks for the best wishes, and I for one have put some washing up liquid in the car window screen wiper, but like Melosine says, you have also to be a certain type to catch the thing and also incredibly unlucky I think.
Three more rounds to jam in now before returning to UK on Monday. Eeeehhh, you can knock Spain all you like but my goodness even while working this week, the recreation and weather, change of pace and perspective has been a massive tonic.
And talking of tonic, going to have one of those this evening with a gin thrown in too, and an extra one too, because our local bar has finally woken up to the notion of doing second one free during November as a bit of an incentive – still think the price of a single G&T is a liberty almost everywhere though!
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