Do you know what Toxocara Canis is?

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For those of you who answered yes I am assuming you know it as a parasite in from the common round worn found in dogs right? Did you know it is also something that affects humans. I know because I am one of the few who was affected by it. It started when I was 17 years old and I noticed a gray spot in my right eye. No matter what I did it would not go away. I then noticed my headaches were getting worse and more frequent. I started getting really sick to my stomach and very sensitive to light so I called my eye doctor to set up an appointment. We just thought I needed a stronger perscription. I was not prepared for what they were about to tell my mother and me. They told me I needed to go see a retinal doctor today and be seen. He thought he had seen a large amount of blood in the back of my eye.That is a hard thing for a 17 year old to deal with. Not knowing what was going on we head 23 miles to the retinal specialist to find out what was going on. As the day goes on the bad news grows worse. The retinal specialist did many tests and then 3 hours later tells me we need to do laser surgery today to stop the bleeding. After the surgery I go home and wait a week and go back for a check up. There is still more bleeding but there is nothing they can do for 2 more weeks. For 2 weeks the headaches get worse and the visions gets worse. I go back for laser surgery agian. This time stopping the bleeding. For now. For the next 6 months I go in once a week to try and find out why I keep hemerging. At the end of the six months he has no good news for me and no diagnosis. He did however had more grim news. The rate I was losing my vision he said my right eye would be dead by age 24. They were talking transplant. I declined. I did lose all vision for a short period of time but part of it came back as quick as it left. At age 17 I never thought I would be on disability by age 20 for the rest of my life. For 9 years I went from state to state and doctor to doctor hoping something would come up. Someone could tell me what is going on with me. In 2004 I was living in Tennessee and went to see a new eye doctor. In this visit I learned what was causing all my visual problems. Little did I know I would never see right agian. Dr. X told me I had Toxocara Canis. He told me it was a rare disease. I asked what all it was and of course came home and did ALOT of research. Toxocara canis is a parisite that enters into your blood stream and travels to many organs. The main organs attacked by this are the heart, brain, liver and very rarely the eyes. This parasite ate this center tissue of my eyes leaving non reversable damage. I will never get my vision back. I can only see through peripherial vision. In the last 10 years I have learned how to adjust to life using only peripherial vision. You can get toxocara canis from a few things. 1) Digesting the eggs 2) Eating uncooked or not fully cooked meat containing the eggs. It is hard to tell if you have toxocara canis because it causes flu like symtoms. Many of you may of had toxocara canis and never knew it. It does not attack all people. Alot of people can fight it off before damage is done. Some are not so lucky. People most likely to be infected are 1) Children under age 4 whom play alot in the dirt 2) The elderly 3) Pregnant women 4) People with week immune systems. Just to give a quick and short run down on what my vision is like now here are a few things I deal with.... 1) I can not watch TV, read a book or be on the computer for more than 10 minutes at a time before my eyes give out and I cant see anything because my vision goes to a blur. 2) When looking a someone or something, I can see it but my eyes are wandering. I am seeing normal for me but the people around me are just seeing my eyes wander. 3) The eye charts at the doctors office do not exist to me. I can not see them at all. On that note if there are many typos in this I am sorry but it is hard to see what all I am doing on here. Just to let you know this has taken me about 45 minutes just to type this. I will say I am one of the lucky ones. I only lost my vision but others have lost there lives. Due to heart issues,strokes and seizures. I also learned it can take 6 - 10 years before any signs show the disease has attacked you at this point it is to late to do anything about it. Please be careful when dealing with pets. Always wash your hands and try to keep your children from eating dirt or sticking there hands in there mouth when dealing with pets or outside in the dirt. Also keep in mind a person can pass the eggs from there hands to a child and only the child be affected. Pet owners please clean up after your animals to help prevent a child from going through what I have to deal with for the rest of my life.