Valley Fever: The deadly and incurable disease terrifying the west coast
Sarris Baker sat by her daughter’s hospital bed, held her hand, and asked the question she most feared: “Honey, do you want to keep fighting?”
For seven years Cheyenne Baker had been in and out of hospital, after receiving a diagnosis of Valley Fever – a fungal disease which attacks the lungs, caused by the inhalation of airborne spores. Cheyenne’s health issues started back in 2011, when she was just 19.
Sarris had watched Valley Fever slowly steal Cheyenne’s life. Her baby son Eli had been born premature and she suffered from severe memory loss and epilepsy. Every day her symptoms worsened.
“I said, ‘if you’re done fighting, I will support you in that,” Sarris said, recalling that moment in March 2018. “If you are done fighting, I need you to squeeze my hand’... And she squeezed my hand.”
Cheyenne died on Friday 13 April 2018, just days shy of her 27th birthday.
The incidence of Valley Fever – known scientifically as Coccidioidomycosis, and colloquially as “Cocci” – has increased substantially over the past 20 years on the US west coast, with the most epidemic regions found in Arizona and Southern California.
Some experts believe the increase is related to the climate crisis, with extreme weather making conditions more likely
