Six months after an outbreak of fungal meningitis that killed dozens of people and sickened hundreds more, many patients are still recovering.
Nancy Goodfellow is one of them.
The Roanoke County resident is feeling better these days, but after spending two full months in the hospital, and many weeks recuperating at home she is still feeling the effects of her illness.
"I'm a breast cancer survivor. I went through chemo 20 years ago, but this is a little more intense," Goodfellow said in an interview Sunday afternoon, "I guess because of the lack of knowledge of what this was all about."
The Centers for Disease Control report that more than 700 people in 22 states became ill after receiving contaminated medications. 48 people have died including 2 in Virginia.
For Goodfellow the prescriptions are piling up, but she's thankful her medical team eventually found an effective combination of drugs. And she's convinced the attention of her family and close friends pulled her through.
"But the fact that a fungus can cause this much debilitation... is just very, very discouraging," she told us. "And I just hope that something comes out of it to improve our coverage of these kind of manufacturers."
And Nancy Goodfellow isn't alone. Some who received the contaminated injections continue to have life-threatening complications. The husband of one patient told us "people are truly suffering." "In fact," he wrote in an email, "it's far from over."
