WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Tenn. (WTVF) — Kathleen York has spent nearly a year not feeling like herself.
"I just felt I wanted to cry every single day," York said.
York was one of 40 people sickened in a 2025 histoplasmosis outbreak in Williamson and Maury counties. She was diagnosed in September 2025 and took anti-fungal medication for months.
"Every day I wake up and I'm still sick, you know, it's not going away," York said.
The fungal illness took a serious physical toll. York developed a heart condition and a kidney injury, and says she still experiences brain fog. Countless tests and missed family time followed as symptoms kept her homebound.
"I swelled up huge. I had like edema, big lymph nodes sticking out everywhere. I didn't even know you had all these lymph nodes in your legs that could swell like that," York said.
The anti-fungal medication brought its own hardships.
"As hard as it is on your body, you just have to take them or you don't get rid of this fungus," York said.
"Mentally you just feel like, enough already," York said.
Nearly all of the histoplasmosis patients I spoke with either live or walked near construction off Buckner Lane. York says she would walk a path that took her around the construction site.
"I'd do a circle around the construction," York said.
Now, York says she has reached her breaking point and is ready to fight for answers.
"You start to feel better and you just get angry. You just get angry that this shouldn't have happened. It just should not have happened to any of us," York said.
"We need to find out why this happened and helped people it happened to. There needs to be some kind of accountability," York said.
30 people have joined a potential lawsuit. Attorney Tiffany Carpenter says she only represents confirmed histoplasmosis patients who live or worked near the Williamson-Maury county line for this case.
"We made a concerted effort only to accept clients with confirmed histoplasmosis diagnosis," Carpenter said.
Carpenter says the number of people coming forward tells a larger story.
"It says there are a lot more people affected by this outbreak than I think we all knew," Carpenter said.
Carpenter says investigators are looking at several aspects of the case, including whether dust suppression methods were used and followed as mandated by law.
The Tennessee Department of Health confirmed a total of 40 cases of the fungal illness from the 2025 outbreak, with no clear source identified. The department says the current number of histoplasmosis cases does not indicate an ongoing outbreak. One person in Tennessee has died.
Do you have more information about this story? You can email me at Amanda.Roberts@NewsChannel5.com
This story was reported on-air by Amanda Roberts and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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