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http://www.wausaudailyherald.com/article/20100417/WDH0101/4170449/1981/WDHbusiness

By Jake Miller  • For the Wausau Daily Herald • April 17, 2010
When you live outside the Midwest, sometimes the only place to get good blastomycosis information is central Wisconsin.

After she was found to have blasto, a fungus specific to the North, Bobbie McCraw, 82, of Mansfield, La., searched the Internet for information about a fungus not often found south of the Ohio River.

She landed on a slew of newspaper articles published throughout central Wisconsin -- likely because fungus-based infections are typically regional, said Dr. Matt Hall, an infectious disease specialist at Marshfield Clinic.

Northcentral Wisconsin happens to be a breeding ground for blasto, while the West and South have their own localized fungi. Soil type dictates what type of fungus can grow, he said.

Only four cases of blasto were confirmed in Louisiana during 2008, the most recent data available from the state's health department.

Marathon County Health Department has 21 confirmed blastomycosis cases this year, only five shy of last year's total, said Ruth Marx, an epidemiologist for the county.

But in McCraw's small town of about 5,000 people, located south of Shreveport in northern Louisiana, she said no one else has been infected.

"It's very rare, according to the articles I've brought up on the computer," McCraw said, feeling much better since treatment began a month ago. "I noticed in this article I've got, it's in humans and animals."

Blastomycosis appears mostly in the North, but can be found as far south as Louisiana in rare instances, Hall said. Histoplasmosis is a similar fungal infection more likely to be found in southern states, while Valley Fever is prevalent in the Southwest, he said.

"It's been a trip, I'll tell you that," McCraw said. "It's been a trip."

Doctors often try to treat blastomycosis with antibacterial medicine, because the infection produces pneumonia-like symptoms, leading to delayed diagnosis. That was the case for McCraw, too, who spent a total of 13 days in the hospital before her doctor pinpointed the blasto.

"I don't know how my doctor diagnosed it," she said, still surprised. "Evidently, he's a pretty smart man."