Arggg, mushrooms grow in caves, not sandboxes.
Sure they do!
Some can have spores that are viable after decades of drought.
Some are even
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.
And anti-fungal treatments barely even work compared to the anti-bacterial or anti-viral treatments we are used to.
If your immune system can't fight this off itself, you can look forward to 3-6 months of intravenous meds several times a week.
Sometimes that doesn't work either!
In the infectious stage of it's life-cycle the fungus lives as small cells floating around in a host.
But after the host dies it goes into a different life-stage where it digests the host to produce fruiting bodies so it can make spores and start the whole thing again.
But if you are REALLY unlucky, the process will start while you are still alive!
- Destroyed nerve-sheathing sets your pain-nerves to always-on.
- Loss of muscle control.
- Seizures.
- Immuno-collapse.
- or sometimes hyper-immune-response (You become allergic to...you)
- Organ tumors. Sometimes malignant human tissue. Sometimes just fungal masses.
- OH! And eventually "cognitive failure" as your brain gets wrecked by fungal growths if you haven't died horribly from the other stuff yet!
From all accounts, it's a pretty unpleasant
5-10 years.
It's a good thing this stuff really only lives in the "deep desert"...
...until it started spreading. The US reported about 25x more cases from 2009-2019 than 1990-2000, with new infections occuring in 28 states, up from the 'normal' 7 desert states. (Possibly due to climate change, but more data is needed.)
Enjoy your nightmares...
