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In this day and age , Green argues that iniquity is the root cause of TB slip and deaths , and that we can collectively choose to correct that injustice and at last snuffle out the mortal disease .
At the fourth dimension , I knew almost nothing about TB . To me , it was a disease of chronicle — something that kill depressive 19th - century poet , not present - tense humans . But as a friend once told me , " Nothing is so inside as mentation history belong to the past . "
These dishes containMycobacterium tuberculosis, the bacteria behind tuberculosis (TB). Each outlined area contains a different antibiotic, and you can tell which drugs the bacteria is resistant to based on how well it grows in that section. Drug resistance makes TB much more challenging to treat.
When we arrived at Lakka , we were immediately greeted by a child who premise himself as Henry . " That ’s my son ’s name , " I told him , and he smile . Most Sierra Leoneans are multilingual , but Henry spoke particularly good English , especially for a kid his age , which made it possible for us to have a conversation that could go beyond my few crippled phrases of Krio . I asked him how he was doing , and he said , " I am happy , sir . I am encouraged . " He love that watchword . Who would n’t ? promote , like courage is something we rout out ourselves and others into .
My boy Henry was 9 then , and this Henry bet about the same eld — a small boy with spindly legs and a big , goofy grin . He have on short and an oversize rugby shirt that make intimately to his articulatio genus . Henry took cargo deck of my T - shirt and commence take the air me around the hospital . He showed me the lab where a technician was looking through a microscope . Henry looked into the microscope and then asked me to , as the lab tech , a young womanhood from Freetown , explain that this sample contained tuberculosis even though the affected role had been deal for several months with standard therapy . The lab tech began to tell me about this " received therapy , " but Henry was pull on my shirt again . He walk me through the ward , a complex of poorly ventilated buildings that contained hospital way with debar window , thin mattress , and no toilets . There was no electrical energy in the wards , and no consistent run water . To me , the elbow room resemble prison cells . Before it was a TB hospital , Lakka was a leprosy closing off deftness — and it experience like one .
Inside each room , one or two patients lie on cot , generally on their side or back . A few sit on the edges of their beds , lean ahead . All these military personnel ( the women were in a freestanding hospital ward ) were thin . Some were so emaciate that their skin seemed wrapped tightly around bone . As we take the air down a hall between buildings , Henry and I watched a vernal man drink weewee from a charge card feeding bottle , and then promptly vomit a mix of bile and line . I instinctively turned aside , but Henry continued to stare at the military man .
I figured Henry was someone ’s small fry — a doctor , maybe , or a nurse , or one of the cooking or cleanup staff . Everyone seemed to get laid him , and everyone stop their oeuvre to say hello and rub his fountainhead or squeeze his hand . I was now charmed by Henry — he had some of the foible of my son , the same self-contradictory mixture of shyness and enthusiastic desire for connection .
Henry eventually brought me back to the radical of doctors and nurses who were fit in a small room near the ingress of the hospital , and then one of the nurses lovingly and laughingly shooed him aside .
" Who is that child ? " I asked .
" Henry ? " answered a nurse . " The sweetest boy . "
" He ’s one of the patient we ’re worried about , " said a physician who went by Dr. Micheal .
" He ’s a patient role ? " I asked .
" Yes . "
" He ’s such a cute little kid , " I said . " I hope he ’s going to be all right . "
Dr. Micheal told me that Henry was n’t a little boy . He was xvii . He was only so pocket-sized because he ’d grown up malnourished , and then the TB had further macerate his body .
" He seems to be doing okay , " I say . " Lots of Energy Department . He walk me all around the hospital . "
" This is because the antibiotic drug are work , " Dr. Micheal explained . " But we have intercourse they are not working well enough . We are almost certain they will fail , and that is a big problem . " He shrugged , pixilated - lipped .
There was a band I did n’t understand .
After I first fulfill Henry , I asked one of the nurses if he would be okay . " Oh , we love our Henry ! " she said . She told me he had already go through so much in his young lifespan . give thanks God , she say , that Henry was so make love by his mother , Isatu , who visited him regularly and brought him extra food whenever she could . Most of the affected role at Lakka had no visitor . Many had been give up by their families ; a tuberculosis case in the family was a tremendous mark of shame . But Henry had Isatu .
I realized none of this was an result to whether he would be all right .
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He is such a felicitous child , she narrate me . He cheers everyone up . When he ’d been able-bodied to go to school , the other kid called him pastor , because he was always offering them appeal and assistance .
Still , this was not an resolution .
" We will fight for him , " she told me at last .
Everything Is Tuberculosis : The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection
In " Everything Is T.B. , " John Green tells the story of Henry Reider , a T.B. patient role he meet at Lakka Government Hospital in Sierra Leone . Throughout the account book , he weave Henry ’s story with scientific and social history of how tuberculosis has form our earth — and how our choices will mold the future tense of tuberculosis .
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