One Of Several
Bit By The Bug

By Liz Goff

Tony "G" lives in his family home in College Point with his parents, two brothers and a younger sister.

He describes himself as a "prisoner" of routine, up at 6 a.m. Showered and dressed, Tony heads downstairs to grab a bagel and a cup of "the best coffee on the planet" (his mom’s). Then he’s out the door and off to work on Wall Street where, at 23, he is considered a "star" among traders at Smith-Barney.

Speaking from his bed at New York Hospital of Queens, Tony said it was the routineness of his life that put him where he is. Bored with the usual vacation in July, Tony decided to break-away this year and do something different.

When his boss offered him tickets to the US Open, Tony decided to stay in Queens this year. With his 21-year old fiancée at his side, Tony joined the rich and famous in Flushing for three days last week. The couple took in a Mets game and played games of chance at a festival in Forest Park – a lot of fun sandwiched into three or four days.

So when Tony woke up during the night on Thursday, Sept. 2 feeling "achy," sluggish and feverish with "the worst headache you could imagine," he attributed the symptoms to the whirlwind of activity that marked the start of his vacation.

Within hours, Tony was holed-up in the emergency room at the Flushing hospital, one of several Queens residents who were about to be diagnosed with St. Louis Encephalitis. No one was saying anything for certain, but whispers in the hall blamed the outbreak of the disease on infected mosquitoes.

Tony said he spent much of the night in the Emergency Room, but by morning he was moved into a room at the hospital where doctors said little – and did less to provide an antidote to the disease.

Hours later, by late afternoon on Friday, Sept. 3, Tony began to drift in and out of sleep. "It was involuntary," he said. "Almost like someone was turning a switch on and off." During one of those "naps" a team of physicians and nurses walked into his room where they spoke in careful, gentle tones to Tony’s family and fiancée. It was official. Two seniors who were brought to the hospital with similar, but much more serious symptoms than Tony’s had passed away after being bitten by disease-carrying mosquitoes, and diagnosed with St. Louis Encephalitis.

The doctors explained the disease to Tony’s family, along with the reality that there is no antidote. Tony would just have to "ride-out" the symptoms – and hope that his body could fight the disease.

Tony stopped talking several times during his conversation with the Tribune. The headache seemed to pummel at Tony’s eyes. He kept them closed most of the time. When he opened his eyes, the light pierced his head, causing the headache to cause double-vision. The pain was so intense at times that he could "feel" a light being turned on or off – "even the air seemed to intensify the pain," he said.

Meanwhile, outside – on the streets of College Point, Whitestone and Flushing, city officials spoke to residents, trying to explain the outbreak of Encephalitis in a town where the disease just doesn’t exist.

Health officials handed out Cutter insect repellant and offered a list of "tips" that might help prevent the spread of the disease. Helicopters buzzed overhead, spraying a mist of insecticide on areas where the mosquitoes laid eggs that would continue the cycle.

Residents complained to city health officials that their pleas for help to clear up a persistent mosquito population have fallen on deaf ears for many years.

Tony’s mother recalled evenings on the family porch that were intolerable. "You’d be eaten to death," she said. It was so bad most years that she covered the family’s beds with net – to prevent anyone from being bitten overnight.

By Tuesday, Sept. 7, there were 37 suspected cases of St. Louis Encephalitis in Queens, involving people over 60, five confirmed cases involving patients of "mixed ages," and the two deaths – both Queens’ seniors. There were no cases involving children.

Tony remains hospitalized, where he is administered Tylenol several times each day and personnel do their best to make him comfortable. He is considering going home, where he said he can "get his own Tylenol" and recover in his own bed.

No one has been able to tell Tony how long the symptoms will persist. It’s a waiting game, officials said.

Family and friends headed back to Tony’s home after spending most of Labor Day with the young broker.

"We went home to spray ourselves, again," the family said. To hide behind screens and in air-conditioned rooms that they hoped were mosquito-free. Tony’s brother, Michael, braved the front porch – where he flipped "Cutter-burgers" for the clan and cursed neighbors who filled pools in June, then left the dirty, stagnant water for months – a favorite breeding place for the mosquitoes.

Back at the hospital, Tony shook his head. "All of this because I wanted to change my routine, to do something different." He seemed to long for his "usual" vacation in Florida.

"I wonder how many killer-mosquitoes there are in Ft. Lauderdale?," he said.