TB Personal Stories

Santos’s Story

Santos

Santos first heard about tuberculosis (TB) when his infant son became ill and was diagnosed with TB meningitis. Santos then learned that he himself had latent TB infection. He started treatment for latent TB infection, but didn’t finish it. Years later, he came down with TB disease. Now Santos serves as peer counselor at his county health department for other people who have latent TB infection.

Santos, a devoted father, was deeply worried when his infant son was diagnosed with TB meningitis. This is meningitis of the brain or spine covering, a severe, life-threatening form of TB disease.

He made sure his son received the care and treatment he needed. According to standard protocol, when Santos’s then-infant son was diagnosed with TB, the local public health department where he lived conducted an investigation to find out if others in close contact with the young patient had TB disease and could be source of his infection. The investigation also looked to see if others in the household could have been infected, as well, so they could be given preventive therapy. Santos did not have TB disease, but he learned that he did indeed have latent TB infection. This means he had probably been infected by breathing in some of the same bacteria that was making his son sick. But the organisms had been stopped by Santos’s immune system and were in a latent, nonactive state. Thus, Santos was not contagious and did not have any symptoms of TB disease.

Santos started taking medicine to get rid of the TB bacteria and prevent the infection from progressing to TB disease, but he did not complete his treatment. Since Santos wasn’t feeling sick, he did not understand the importance of completing the full course of preventive treatment. However, his son finished his TB treatment and was cured. All was fine, for a few years.

“The local TB program helped me out a lot. First, they helped me understand about TB. They gave me a lot of information that I needed. Whenever I needed something, they helped.”

Then Santos started feeling really bad without knowing what was wrong. By this time, he and his son had moved to the Atlanta, Georgia, area, where several of their family members live. He went to the doctor and was treated for various respiratory ailments, but he didn’t improve. He lost his appetite and, as a result, lost a lot of weight. He was coughing and sweating, was very weak, and constantly had a fever. Eventually he was even coughing up blood, which was very frightening. He became so sick that he could no longer work. And without a job, he then lost his home. He and his son moved in with his brother, who was glad to welcome them.

Santos did not get better, and had no idea what was making him so sick. His mother insisted he go to the hospital. He resisted initially, but eventually felt so sick that he agreed to be driven to the emergency room of the local hospital. There he was diagnosed with TB disease. He was given standard treatment for TB disease, which means taking a handful of pills every day for at least 6 months. Taking the therapy was hard since some of the drugs can have unpleasant side effects. However, as Santos can attest, it’s not impossible. “I was motivated by my family. Also, I wanted to be healthy and I wanted to work. Because I was sick, I couldn’t work, and I lost everything,” Santos relates.