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In 1963 my father was sanding the stairwell of the older home in which we lived. He was 47 and I was 10 years of age. The next thing I remember was seeing him lying on the couch struggling to get each breath. The next thing I remember he was undergoing surgery to remove the lower lobe of his left lung. He had been diagnosed with Bronchiectasis. He got better after the surgery and quit smoking. For at least 45 minutes at least twice a day he would use a recliner to drain his lungs by putting his head on the floor and his legs in the air and spit out the mucus that would drain out by gravity. He was prescribed SSKI, an inexpensive simple saturated solution of the salt KI (potassium iodide). This is an expectorant which means it thins mucus making it easier to loosen and cough up and spit out phlegm. When dad would begin to wheeze and struggle to breathe he would put about 10 drops of this solution in a glass of water and drink it. This would relieve his wheezing and trouble breathing. Dad always thought this spell was precipitated by breathing the dust from sanding that old wooden stairwell.....Years later I met a lady in her 40's who suffered from a rare Aspergillosis (a specific mold allergy). Before she finally found help her family doctor told her that her lungs looked like a piece of raw meat. He said it looked like pneumonia but would not respond to antibiotics. She was dying and he told her very honestly that he did not know what to do for her, that he had never seen anything like it. Because I was interested, she gave me a copy of the article given to her to help her understand more about this rare mold allergy. There was that word again (Bronchiectasis). The article went on to explain that the spores of this mold could survive in old wood for years and when cut and the dust containing spores inhaled, an inflammatory condition could be triggered in those who were (for whatever reason) allergic. ...to be continued...

Interesting - I tested positive to Aspergillus allergy when I was in India. Mowing the lawn used to leave me absolutely sick. I got to the point where I did it with a painter's mask, and then I just tore out the grass and put in bushes.