School Teacher Develops Mesothelioma in Libby, Montana

This short story is all about a woman who had a great passion to teach. In order to obtain money for college, she worked as a part time worker in an insulation plant. The insulation produced at this large plant was derived from Vermiculite, which was a naturally occurring mineral. Initially vermiculite was considered to be safe material, but the fact is some strains of vermiculite are contaminated with large quantity of asbestos.

Part time job at insulation plant

The vermiculite mine located in Libby, Montana, contained the highly lethal kind of asbestos, called tremolite. At this insulation processing plant in pokane, where this woman labored for a year with hardship of hauling tons of vermiculite ore from the railcars to the large ovens, dust was always constantly in the air. This tiny particle of dust was filled with asbestos laden vermiculite. Although the initial risk of asbestos exposure were known at the time, no one came forward to suggest that the workers of this plant to wear respirators or other safety devices to reduce the dust inhalation.

Signs of symptoms

As years passed by this very active teacher of the primary school was liked and was an inspiration for many children. She was a master in the subject which she taught with much enthusiasm to the children. But in 1996, while teaching an interesting topic in a full attendance class room, she felt shortness of breath. She took it lightly and continued her passion to teach the interesting listening children. When the days passed by, she felt this symptoms not only during her working hours but also while at home. Later she experienced abdominal swelling and it caused her much pain.

Days after diagnosis

It is believed that  she developed pleural mesothelioma when she was doing the part time job in the insulation processing plant during her early adulthood which had asbestos roofing plus vermiculite. It is a known fact that mesothelioma is a latent asbestos disease which can take anywhere around 30 to 40 years to the full develop and turn symptomatic.

• Her sudden death at the hands of malignant pleural mesothelioma back up the need for extra mesothelioma research and the development of new mesothelioma treatment options for pleural mesothelioma and peritoneal mesothelioma.
• She passed away two three weeks after undergoing mesothelioma diagnosis.
• Moreover, when mesothelioma cancer treated using traditional cancer therapies has proven to be an incurable disease.
• There is also a need for creating support groups for mesothelioma and mesothelioma patients.
• It is highly believed that more awareness and additional research study about mesothelioma asbestos could definitely yield a breakthrough in the treatment of  asbestos cancer.