AN MDR- TB BATTLEGROUND

In the wake of popping news reports on government’s negligence in recording health hazard victims, this is my account on my ongoing struggle with TB, being a onetime Intestinal TB survivor and a Multi drug resistant TB patient now (drug resistant is when your body is resistant to potent TB drugs ).

This write up comes from someone who has already disappeared. Who has vanished from short family gatherings, college, workplace, cafe, crowd and anywhere there are people. But she has only taken a break, a break that she doesn’t want to get extended anymore. Because today she can’t take a gratifying arm stretch every morning, she throws up at the very sight of breakfast; she is rushed to the hospital every afternoon for painful injections that she can’t bear. Evenings are nightmares to her, pills are harder to take, she is acrophobic and germaphobic, there is tingling under her feet, crushing pain in the bones, unstoppable coughing ,rashes all over her body, buzzing in the ears, blurred vision, she can’t breathe, she spits blood. .!She is an MDR-TB Battleground. But, she won’t die. She has the force of modern medicines that guarantees the cure. She is afraid that her disappearance caused no change. It made no difference anywhere, not a bit. That scares her. That apathy frightens her. She lies on the bed in pain for no fault of her. She wishes to scream” DONT BREATHE”, because breathing is the only fault she has done to get caught by the vicious tuberculosis. The saddening reality is you, my friend, you are breathing too. 


The above is from my documentation of Multi Drug Resistant Tuberculosis treatment pace which is still going on, I am in the third month of the treatment, and the whole course takes almost a year to complete. Tuberculosis is not a word fancy enough for the system to consider. I am in no plans to spread long an essay of medical jargons and other existing statistics. My motto here is to notify anybody else out there that a larger community is dying, and there is a very possible proximity of you falling in that list. You need not be a medical practitioner, doctor, nurse or anyone related to the healthcare sphere to understand the very basic need of breathing. That aspect that connects us all is that we are breathing the same air. In reality that’s not so romantic here.


Since I had posted about my illness on social networking sites, there had been numerous statistical data links, research materials, advancement in the healthcare system related links popping in my news feed every day. I have been gathering info from every possible Facebook profiles associated with health care, TB programmes and so on. I had learnt various testimonies, from India and other countries.

Though the general public often ignores tuberculosis in their casual talks, I don’t think the taboo and stigma surrounding it are brought into active discussion either. The stigma very much sticks to a level that I am asked often “How did you get it? “, as if they are certain of who are likely to get it. Relatives have shunned me, I am not very stonehearted to feel okay at instances like that, I move forward because that’s the only option, which I rationally accepted.

Today, I seek solidarity; I seek assurance and support that the crowd out there will embrace my struggle. Your stigma is killing many. Drug induced afflictions has already caused them a mental mess, so do not suffocate them with your ambiguities and apathy. I want this notice to be spread; I want to notify you all that there is toxic in the air, the one reading this should understand that the bacteria I inhaled might also be dancing in the air you are breathing. And it pounces on you unannounced. One fine day, you lose your job, studies, people, or a halt to everything you were once involved into. Getting back to normalcy becomes a farfetched dream for me at present, when treatment is harder than the sickness itself; wouldn’t you listen to my story so that you don’t fall into this treacherous phase???