Tuberculosis

I was five years old when they decided to start testing everyone for tuberculosis, and wouldn’t you know it, I had it.

They did some slicing and draining on my neck and then I had to live on a regimen of dozens of pills a few times a day, choking and gagging, crying and complaining, and a trip to the big city every year for lung x-rays, to make sure we were staying all clear. In my early twenties, a younger doctor told me I should probably stop doing those x-rays and it could be part of the reason for the indolent cancer now. Whatever, the doctor saved my life at the time. We are not immortal. Science is not flawless. Don’t be a ninny. Get vaxed please. They eradicated tb … thanks to those tests … before that it had killed 1 out of every 7 people that HAD EVER LIVED.