Who is Seonai?
Seonai Gordon is a 40 something female battling TB. She is originally from Scotland, with no patriotic feelings therefore considering herself as a human being, address; The World. She is well travelled, quite smart and has never knowingly hurt another person in any way.
Seonai is a former nurse, turned journalist and you can Google her name - 'Seonai Gordon' - to read some of her other articles. She welcomes emails but cannot claim to be in a position to offer medical advice. She can, however, put you in touch with the right people if you ask.
I just got back from shopping and I'm really stressed and breathless - it's
Friday evening and everyone's rushing. When I was walking to the taxi rank
lots of people pushed past or into me and I felt very conscious of being
'ill'. God how I hate that word now.
'If only this hadn't happened to me' I thought... 'poor me... how sad that
I can't walk normally and my lungs are in a terrible state.'
Then I got home and relaxed and remembered that this is the reality, TB has
totally changed my life and it's probably going to be like that for a long
time. When you are on the treatment, it seems like forever and taking the
horrible drugs goes on and on. But actually, for most of you, hopefully
there will be an end to this. One day you will be told you can stop taking
the drugs and live a fairly normal life. Not quite the same for me because
my TB was diagnosed late my lungs are permanently damaged. It's very hard to
accept that I am 'disabled' and can't travel the way I used to or do simple
things like run up a small hill with my son.
One area that's always left out when health professionals deal with your
individual TB case is the psychological side. No one ever asks you 'How do
you feel now that you have a disease that everybody thinks doesn't exist
anymore?' (in Britain and Central Europe); the feelings you get when even
hospital staff don't know how to manage you or take care about infection;
the way your friends react when they hear you have TB. I realise that
doctors and nurses have enough work to do but it would be good if they might
take some time to explain the illness to us and also about how people might
react.
The second issue I'd like to address in this column today really is, WHY are
the media not talking about TB - why are the newspapers and television
stations not discussing it? I mean in Britain - where I am stuck at the
moment - the papers talk about cows and badgers with TB and how scary that
is... but they don't talk about human beings. Are they ashamed because they
claimed TB was gone? Are they scared to start a panic? I don't know, but
what I do know is that the more you don't give people information about
things like TB, the BIGGER the problem will be in the future.
In all the countries of the world we need to make sure that all populations
are aware that TB exists, understand what to do if they have a cough or
other symptoms and, most of all, be sympathetic to those who have TB. This
is all... not too much talking and signing declarations, this is what needs
to be done first... later comes drug treatment and rehabilitation.
- Seonai’s World /Column 8/ 27-09-07
- Seonai’s World /Column 7/ 02-09-07
- Seonai’s World /Column 6/ 22-08-07
- Seonai’s World /Column 5/ 15-08-07
- Seonai’s World /Column 4/ 08-08-07
- Seonai’s World /Column 3/ 30-07-07
- Seonai’s World /Column 2/ 23-07-07
- Seonai’s World /Column 1/ 12-07-07
To contact Seonai by email click here
