We’d never heard of it up until a few weeks ago. Stafford had a fever for a week and ended up in hospital because it was so debilitating for him. After a 4 day stay in hospital with an enlarged liver and 5kg weight loss, the diagnosis was Q Fever. It turned out 2 of the other shearers caught it as well.
Q Fever Facts:
Q fever is an infection caused by Coxiella burnetii, a type of bacterium found worldwide except New Zealand. The infection is almost always related to direct or indirect contact with animals such as cattle, sheep or goats, although a wide range of animals including cats, dogs and kangaroos may carry the infection.
Signs and symptoms
- fever, which may last for up to 4 weeks
- severe headache
- sweats and chills
- fatigue – and a prolonged fatigue (post Q fever fatigue syndrome) may follow infection
- muscle aches
- confusion
- sore throat
- dry cough
- chest pain on breathing
- abdominal pain.
The sheep at the station they caught it from were way overdue to be shorn due to the farmer’s wife being in hospital with cancer. I guess it was a stressful time for the farmer and the farm suffered as well. Apparently there were a lot of sickly sheep which in turn effected the shearers. Wow, it shows how crucial a farmer’s job is.
Stafford has recovered fairly well now but it can take a while to get it right out of your system…and at his young age (NOT) getting back into the grueling shearing work probably isn’t wise. He’s lucky he has options for work and will be going back to his vocational training job.
So it looks like we’ll be cutting our yearlong adventure short and heading back home in a few weeks.
We still have a few more adventures we are hoping to squeeze in before we head home…it’s not over just yet!!!!
Off Grid Maori 