I won't lie: I ordered this book because I am personally affected by TB. I got TB after COVID wiped my immune system so low that the 2, full-time retail jobs I was working (because in 2022, no one had money or resources to pay me for my JD skills) sniped me. I was repeatedly misdiagnosed with RSV, the common cold, and flu--all without testing--and no one thought to test me for TB despite my symptoms. I had walking pneumonia for 6 months--not bad enough to treat because, as the ER docs reminded me constantly, I "wasn't dying," so I needed to follow up with the PCP I didn't have because the healthcare system was at the tail "end" of the COVID pandemic (which is still going around, still harming the same number of people, still mutating) and all of the PCPs in my insurance had jumped to another insurance so I was on a waiting list for over two years to get one. At the time, I wasn't good enough to be well and ended up losing my second job, which fully fixed me into poverty. I remember consciously gulping air like a prisoner who hadn't had water in days for those 6 months, being forced to wear a mask to keep the rising tides of my bills just touching my nostrils such that if I skipped meals and slept in parking lots between shifts I could tread a little higher the next month, and not seeing a single person I lived with for over 2 years to keep things going because if I got them sick, the entire house was going to collapse in on itself. We could only afford 2 people to be unemployed (theirs due to addiciton, so not a recoverable situation without their consent and participation) and the other person working had lifelong respiratory problems so I did what I had to do to keep them well. That meant presenting as homeless to the ER every time I got sick and being told to, simply, not have the life conditions I have because it was "making things worse" and "prolonging the illnesses" but still had no treatment and no tests despite how long I had been sick. So, inevitably, I ended up back in the hospital for over a month. I had to have the paramedics shut down the store because I thought I had a severe kidney infection, and the ambulance drivers thought I had cardiac problems. Once cleared of all of that, I sat in an ER waiting room for almost 48 hours while they ran tests that cleared my heart, kidneys, and lungs. Once I finally got into the back of the ER, they wanted to check my gallbladder but because it was a weekend, the guy couldn't come in to run the test so I was in the ER bay for another 48 hours without food or medicine while they tried to get that arranged--only for them to bungle it because they couldn't "spare a tech" for the literal 10 minutes of the scan when the guy came in on his day off (a Sunday NIGHT). to do it. They ended up taking my gallbladder out after doing the scan--which, after being given the PKs to incite the billiary functioning of the entire area, took 4 hours because they couldn't give me the pain medication to stop the side effects which meant I had to control my pain iwth breathing and my oxygen was so low at times they coudln't parse out the different symtoms. My hands were so blue from the time they took me into the ER bay through then that they were worried about my lungs so they took an x-ray...and it was clear. It was just that I only had the one tool to try and control my pain and remain still enough for them to do what they had to do. But things didn't improve. Every 3 days a doctor would try to come in and convince me that what I was feeling was normal and that I just needed to get out of the ER and get some rest at home. By the third meeting, I had already lost my job because Sedgwick--the company that controls leave for almost every major employer in the U.S.--didn't receive the documents or they didn't receive the right documents or the documents didn't say what they thought or an of a hundred excuses I heard to endy my FMLA claim. While Googling the different things that could potentially be wrong with me--Sphincter of Oddi Dysfunction being the one I remember the most--John Green came across my screen with his new series on Tuberculosis: how it kills millions a year despite the treatment being widely available and cheap to produce and distribute; how my State was a refuge for the afflicted back in the day and how that literally shaped New Mexico; and how more people have it than they think. After you spend a certain amount of time in the hospital, they have to run labs for easily communicable diseases. I didn't have community-acquired pneumonia. I didn't have COVID, flu, RSV, etc. But my blood did come back positive for Tuberculosis and the way I found out was the charge nurse very nervously came and shut my door while on the phone with the labs. The "golden standard" blood tests take 3 days to do in the hospital so, by their standards, I had spent over 2 weeks being the easily transmitted communicable disease spreader between nurses having to pick me up off the floor between pain and weakness because I wasn't allowed to have pain medication in case they had to run more tests and I couldn't eat between the pain and weakness, not being able to clean myself because I felt paralyzed from the neck down many days, and having to constantly put on the tabs and stickers that I had sweated or swatted off in the brief hours I could find sleep. Suddenly a lot of things became very important: how long did I have night sweats (I've had them daily since I got sick in 2022, was told by an ER doc it was probably early menopause, but it's the reason I go to sleep witha gallon of water and wake up with at least half of it gone), when was the last time I had an illness that made me cough or sweat (since getting the walking pneumonia in 2022, I have had at least one illness a month where things are excreted out of me), did I have an unexpected loss of weight (December 2022 I lost 40 pounds with an additional 20 lost the next month, and I fluctuate those 60 pounds on the monthly well-sick cycle where 30 of those pounds are pure lymphatic drainage and the other 30 I lose from the 5-15 days I spend unable to eat), and just all kinds of things I hadn't put together until then. I know exactly who I got sick from (Becky from the sober house who spent five hours coughing every place I was, who didn't believe in washing hands, and refused to cover her mouth AND clean up anything she coughed on) because literally after that shift I was already ill, and by the next day I physically couldn't go in to work. I know the names of all the people I got sick because I couldn't afford to stop working and they got too sick to come back. I know the faces of the customers that expressed concern for me and I wonder if they got sick, too, because many were elderly people complaining I shouldn't go in to work ill while also complaining my discount store was too high in prices (as though I had unlimited PTO or something). What I can tell you is that based on all the blood tests I have to go to the State for, I am an anomaly. I am grateful that it didn't axe me when it could so that I can say that I somehow didn't get axed by it. But in so doing, it has completely destroyed my health. The remaining time I was in the hospital, my door had to be closed and staff had to wear PPE. I wasn't allowed to walk in the common areas, I was only allowed to walk in my room--so I got really good at unhooking saline and testing leads, turning off monitors so that they didn't have to come in and do it for me every time I needed to go to the bathroom or wanted to walk the 60 arcs back and forth. They did x-rays and MRIs but they couldn't find where the tubunclues are stored, just that I have TB in my blood. The assumption is that it is not active but that any time I am sick I have to quarantine like it is, but until it becomes active they can't treat it because in so doing treating it could reactivate it. I am grateful to John Green for writing the book. I received it yesterday and I know I love it because I hated everything it had to say. TB has been a free, easy way to treat through the State if doctors and practitioners would consider it for people who are not homeless--and even if they are, sending them for the free treatment anyway. I suspect a large number of cases coming from overseas are cases like mine--not fatal so we don't actually look for the reason you're sick, not grave so we don't admit you to the hospital and look for the reason you're sick, and not short-term so it must be a chronic issue you have to follow up with your PCP so we don't look for the reason you're sick. There is no doubt that Henry had a much less privileged and much harder life than mine, but I can't help but feel that intractable kinship with someone whose disease got caught by chance after going unnoticed during something else's rampage. I can't help but hope but to perservere the way he has: knowing every illness I get now, diminished as it might be for others, will seem to flourish more strongly against the damage tuberculosis has done to my body. I can't help but to dream of a future when my life might be cut short due to an overlooked killer that has ravaged and shaped humankind since time immemorial until one day I, too, will die of natural causes. Thank you, John, for your research that has led to more open lines of communication that is making treatment more available to people who not just need it but DESERVE to be well. Thank you, Henry, for your dedication and bravery in the face of everything. I hope you achieve everything you're aiming for and, beyond that, I hope you are happy with the journey and destination.

Fascinating history of a unique slow growing disease with no vaccine that is difficult to treat with antibiotics. The author presents an interesting history of the disease and how human attitudes toward it changed over time. He weaves in the story of the challenges faced by a young Sierre Leon TB patient to get access to expensive medication to treat his resistant strain of TB. The primary challenge now is that Trump and Musk are eliminating a worldwide system called PEPFAR that was set up by GW Bush to get lifesaving medications for TB and HIV to the most remote and poorest part of the World. Like the author I became fascinated with cholera after visiting a remote part of the jungle in Panama where Captain Ulysses S Grant was stuck in 1852 trying to cross the Isthmus when his regiment was struck by an outbreak of cholera. Compared to TB, cholera is much faster growing and easily treated by antibiotics. It was only introduced to the Western world in the late 1700s with the advent of global commerce and rapid urbanization as a result of industrialization. Similar to TB, the spread of cholera was magnified by crowding and unhygienic living conditions.

Just finished reading and crying and reading some more and crying some more. Brilliant and beautiful writing, putting a global healthcare crisis in the context of a lovely young man, Henry. Thank you Mr. Green for opening my eyes and inspiring my life. May we fight for the covers of the book to meet, that the drugs to fight TB finally overcome the disease everywhere.

I give Tuberculosis 0/5 stars. This book was 5/5 stars. Thanks John and everyone who contributed to this book. I will be sharing this with all my friends and family to get the word out so we can be the cure. DFTBA

I will support both Green brothers until the day I die. I can’t wait to read this! I’m also psyched about the signature!

Not just a good book, but beautiful work. Thank you friends.

A beautiful book filled with hope, even during a dark time.

Page 61, John. Page 61.