GUILDERLAND — Walter Cieszynski has been battling cancer for years.

The retired electrician is 72 now and fighting lymphoma and leukemia. He took on a new foe in April, a disease he had never heard of before signs of it were found in his blood — anaplasmosis, a tick-borne illness that is on the rise in New York State and can be fatal.

The Cieszynskis believe he contracted anaplasmosis through a blood transfusion. The state’s health department says no cases of patients receiving anaplasmosis in a transfusion have been reported, and the Red Cross says Mr. Cieszynski did not contract anaplasmosis as the result of a Red Cross blood transfusion. (See related story)

“He’s just weak, no pizazz,” said his wife and constant caretaker, Martha Cieszynski. “Some days are good; some days aren’t.”

Last Thursday, Mr. Cieszynski rested in a reclining chair in a house he helped build himself on 75 acres of land off of Ostrander Road.

He and his wife and their son, Jeffrey Cieszynski, told the story of the hospital stay in April that led to his diagnosis of anaplasmosis, which left him with chills and fever, unable to get up.

Mr. Cieszynski has undergone different regimens of chemotherapy for chronic myeloid leukemia and, in the spring, was undergoing six sessions every three weeks. He went to Ellis Hospital in Schenectady as he had in the past when his blood counts went down from the treatments.

“His heart rate was through the roof; he was on the heart floor and getting better,” recalled his wife, when he was given a blood transfusion.

Instead of improving after the transfusion, as he had in the past, Mr. Cieszynski became very ill.

“He would crawl into a fetal position and was freezing,” his wife recalled. “We’d bundle him up,” she said of herself and her son at his hospital bedside.

Then, he would be feverish “and we’d uncover him,” she said.

The family considers an unnamed lab technician to be the hero of their story.  As a matter of hospital routine, the Cieszynskis said, Mr. Cieszynski’s blood was drawn early every morning. “A girl in the lab saw his blood didn’t look good and did this test,” said Mrs. Cieszynski.

“She saw something in the scope,” said Jeff Cieszynski, which led to the diagnosis of anaplasmosis. “All these days he wasn’t right; if she hadn’t done that, who knows where we’d be,” he said.

He went on, “Everyone in the hospital said, ‘It didn’t come from here.’”

“But he wasn’t out because he’s been so sick,” said Mrs. Cieszynski. “Periodically, they’d test his blood for Lyme because he has no energy.” He has not tested positive for Lyme, an illness carried by the same black-legged tick, also known as a deer tick, that carries anaplasmosis.

“I thought right in the beginning, I was sick, I didn’t do anything [outdoors]; it’s not catching. I had no red marks, no bite marks,” said Mr. Cieszynski. He recalled the frustration he felt during that hospital stay. “I’m sick as a dog, trying to tell them, ‘I ain’t been outside.’”

Jeff Cieszynski summarized the way anaplasmosis affected his father: “He had a fever; he felt like crap; he didn’t want to get up.”

“He was in Ellis 12 days after he should have been feeling better,” said Mrs. Cieszynski. “I knew nothing when they told us. I always have my iPad with me in the hospital…and I looked it up,” said Mrs. Cieszynski.

An infectious disease specialist confirmed it was anaplasmosis, said Mrs. Cieszynski; her husband was given doxycycline intravenously and his fever subsided. The infectious disease specialist did not return repeated calls from The Enterprise over the course of a month.

Dr. Lawrence Fialkow, medical director for the American Red Cross New York Penn Blood Services Region, responded to Enterprise questions about the donated blood in a written statement saying, “After an extensive investigation, it has been determined that the patient at Ellis Hospital in Schenectady, New York did not contract Anaplasmosis as the result of a Red Cross blood transfusion….In the event that a transfusion-transmitted illness does occur we would report it to the state health department.”

The state health department responded to Enterprise questions in September, “We actively investigate any reported case of anaplasmosis in a patient who has been transfused in the previous 6 months. Based on incidents reported to us, there have been no patients in New York State who received anaplasmosis from a blood transfusion.”

Mrs. Cieszynski called The Enterprise when she read the Sept. 1 front-page article on anaplasmosis. She wanted to alert others to the dangers of blood transfusions.

A decade ago, when Mrs. Cieszynski was having her hip replaced, she recalled, “I was nervous about getting someone else’s blood.” So, in advance, she gave her own blood to be used in the surgery.

Summing up his current situation, Mr. Cieszynski said, “I got so many things going wrong.”

“It’s like a juggling act for us to figure out,” said his wife.

Mrs. Cieszynski displayed a sheaf of paperwork, as thick as a telephone book, of reports from their insurance company running from January to Aug. 18, and totaling $266,000.

“My main fight is with cancer,” said Mr. Cieszynski. “I didn’t know what the biggest problem was,” he said of contracting anaplasmosis.

Mr. Cieszynski smiled when he recalled what his primary-care physician has told him: “If anybody reads your reports, you can’t be living.” Mr. Cieszynski went on, “I just like living. I like this place,” he said, gesturing to the home he helped build.

“This is his paradise,” said his wife. “This is his carrot.”