Bugs. When most people hear that word, they think of bees, flies, spiders; the common insects.
For freshman Jack Kosowski, the word has a whole different meaning. He was born with Toxoplasmosis, an incurable condition in which a group of thousands of parasites live inside his retina, occasionally wake up, and start eating away at his eye. Kosowski has poor peripheral vision and floaters (black spots in his eyes caused by scarring) and is legally blind.
Kosowski was featured on “Monsters Inside Me”, a show on Animal Planet about diseases, parasites and other illnesses that can infect people. The episode was named “I Almost Killed My Baby” and was aired on December 21. It can be watched On Demand or bought on iTunes for $2.99.
“I got interviewed for one and a half hours… they turned off every light in the room and they had one light on. The person that was asking me questions was in the dark. One of the questions they asked was ‘Do you blame your parents for getting the disease?’ It was awful! Of course I don’t blame my parents!” Kosowski said.
Kosowski got the disease while he was in the womb; his mother ate rare lamb with the parasites, and got sick. She was able to fight off the disease; Jack, having a poor immune system, was not. He luckily only received the bad eyesight part of the disease; some people with Toxoplasmosis can develop mental disabilities or go blind.
“Monsters Inside Me” contacted Kosowski’s mother, Nicole, via email to ask about Jack being on the show; they had found him through a post of Mrs. Kosowski on social media.
“It [the TV show] gives a lot of awareness about toxoplasmosis because a lot of people don’t know about it and not many doctors care enough to. If my mom had gotten a blood test, they would have known she had the disease and not just told her she had the flu. I would have been almost completely fine,” Kosowski said. Toxoplasmosis is treatable; the parasites in Jack’s eyes could have been supressed to their dormant form when he was in the womb. If this had been done, Jack would have much better eyesight today.
Even though Kosowski faces many challenges because of the parasite, he has an optimistic and upbeat attitude about his disease and dosen’t allow it to effect his day-to-day activities. While being interviewed for the show, he said “I try to make every day as fun as I can make it.”
Kosowski’s optomistic attitude also effected his parents; “Knowing that there is no cure for the parasite is a difficult thing, but he’s got a good attitude about it. It helped me deal with him having it.” Kosowski’s father, David, said during the show.
The episode featuring Kosowski shows the background information on Kosowski’s disease; most of the show has clips of Kosowski’s parents talking about Kosowski’s birth and when they first noticed something was wrong. It explained that when Kosowski was a couple months old, he had to have surgery because of excess water in his brain that could cause death.
A CAT scan revealed calcifications in Koowski’s brain; unnormal deposits of calcium that may cause dementia, memory loss and muscle spasms. This finding caused Kosowski’s doctor to test his and his mothers blood. She discovered the Taxoplasmosis and perscribed him with powerful antiparacidic drugs, which, after ten days, began working. Soon after returning home, Kosowski picked up his first object; a sure sign that he was beggining to be able to see.
