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Cryptococcus? Anyone else have this fungal infection?
Lung Health | Last Active: 2 days ago | Replies (6)Comment receiving replies
This is a terrible thing to read about and especially someone so young and healthy, it’s scary how many threats are all around and usually the worst ones are not visible to the naked eye. I guess they don’t have a cure available and as you mentioned they are possibly going to have to remove his lower left lobe if nothing else works. I just wanted to try and offer some hope that if he does lose his lobe he will still be able to live a normal life, there are many, many people here who have lost a lung or lobe, young and old and went on to live their lives, myself included and I wasn’t young when I lost my lobe. I realize that a cure is what you pray for but it is truly amazing what they can accomplish in many ways, he’s a young man and this is also a blessing for a good recovery, I will pray for him and you to get through this difficult period, best wishes.
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@frouke Thank you for responding! It is crazy the threats around us we breathe in every day. The odds of a healthy person contracting this infection is "0.4 to 1.3 cases per 100,000 in the US annually." Cryptococcus comes from spores in bird feces and decaying wood. Of course, it cannot be pinpointed where he got it from, but many of his drs believe it may have come from his job. He is a carpenter and at the time he was remolding a 150-year-old home with a lot of rotten wood.
To answer your question about a cure: He has been on a treatment plan since December 2024. He completed 10 days of "The chemotherapy of antibiotics" in the hospital then and has been on Fluconazole since then. We describe his illness as a roller coaster and these last few weeks he has been extra "down" and it resembles how he was at the beginning of this nightmare. His doctors are worried the medicine may not be working and he has become resistant to the medication or that the infection has "walled" itself off and isn't allowing for the medicine to reach it. He had scans and tests today and so far, we are not receiving good news. The mass is still there and has only shrunk by 1 cm since May. (At the beginning of 2025, they wanted it to be gone by now) His pulmonologist already told us that he would have to lose the whole lung because of where the infection is at. Surgery and removal were always worst-case scenario, but it's looking more and more like that's the road he may be on. We will know more next week.
Another issue we run into with it being so rare and not having a lot of research to go off of is that we do not know yet if there is a chance of reoccurrence.
Thank you for the prayers and kind words. It does make us feel a little better to know what kind of quality of life he may have if he does need the surgery.