I was wanting some sort of advice into a illness I had in October 2009 which was not diagnosed and I feel it may have been Legionnaires disease.
I am from the UK but was working on an old badly maintained Russian ship in the Arctic circle at the time. For four weeks we never set eyes on land and was 500 miles from the nearest port and other people during this time and I was taken ill 3 and a half weeks into the trip. This was also at the hight of the swine flu scare and no one else on board the vessel was taken ill but myself to my knowledge.
During the first few weeks it became apparent that the water on board the vessel had been contaminated with salt water due to under maintained old equipment the ships engineer then had to fill a dormant empty tank of water with made fresh water to keep the vessel supplied. This new source of water was brown in colour due to rust and sludge which had not been cleaned from the tank. I was showering in this and had been brushing my teeth also the air-conditioning were in use 24 hours a day.
I visited the doctor on board and complained about feeling tired with muscle aches headaches and what I could only describe as feeling light headed and not feeling to good in my brain sort of going mad. I visited the doctor several times in 10 days with the same complaint and was given aspirins and told it could be because we were working so far north that the magnetic pole could be causing the headaches. The doctors English was not good and I had to read through a computer translation program what the doctor was writing
After about 10 days everything became much worse and I had developed severe fatigue, chest pains and trouble breathing, a slight cough and fever also had not been eating well. When I visited the doctor on this final occasion my temperature was very high about 39 degrees C and I was confined to bed and isolated from the rest of the ships crew. I slept for 24 hours and was not given any food during this time and had no idea what drugs the doctor gave me. From what i could work out when I asked they were paracetamol, anti histamine and antibiotics. After a few days of this I eventually got back to port but was encouraged not to see a doctor in Norway and to get a flight home from and see my local GP as any suggestion of swine flu or legionella could impound the vessel and potentially stop a job costing all parties involved (which included the Russian government) a lot of money and hassle. The information I got from the Doctor on the Russian ship inconclusive and was suggested that I had a cold and my GP gave me Tami flu as a precaution of swine flu but had never heard of the antibiotics I had been given on the vessel. The fatigue, illness, lack of appetite, temperature and my general metal health was in a bad way for up to 5 weeks later. Could there be a chance this was Legionnaires disease and if so how can I prove it was. I feel I was just another pawn in the game. Maybe someone knows what I could able to do about this I feel my employer and the owners of the Russian vessel did not care.
You have hypochondria googalitis. It’s a common condition. The Russians don’t care. It’s their motto.