An Aunt that lives with Thandi’s family has a cough that hasn’t gone away in a long time and she’s also lost lots of weight.
Your choices will effect the story, so please choose carefully
Press the start button below to begin, or press it again to restart the story at the beginning.
The doctor says the aunt has TB!
They explain that the whole family will have to take some medicine
to try to prevent getting TB but there are some side effects,
it’s called “TB Preventative Treatment”.
The doctor explains that even though Thandi seems heathy, it is essential that she take the TB Preventative Treatment.
Thandi starts to feel bad, she feels nauseous and doesn’t want to eat.
Her parents tell her she has no symptoms of TB. She thinks the medicine makes her feel bad.
Thandi’s Aunt finished her course of medicine and the family also finished their TB Preventative Treatment.
The doctor said the Aunt no longer has TB and Thandi and her family no longer needs the preventative treatment and can stop taking it!
Thandi develops a cough and the doctor says they need to do something called the Mantoux test or tuberculin skin test.
She uses a needle to put something in Thandi’s forearm that makes a tiny bump and tells her to come back in a few days.
A few days later her bump has grown…
The doctor says it means she had TB!
Mike O’ is now in her lungs, he’s made up of bacteria called Mycobacterium Tuberculosis and causes TB.
The preventative treatment was to stop him getting into Thandi.
Because Mike O’ is now in Thandi, the doctor says she will have to take even more medicine each day, and the side effects will be worse!
The doctor says Thandi needs to come into the clinic each day so someone at the clinic can watch her take her medicine, they called it “Directly Observed Therapy”.
Due to the medicine Thandi stops feeling any of her TB symptoms, but her side effects have never been worse!
She goes to the doctor, who does a few safety tests. The doctor checks if the doses are ok.
They change one of the medicines so some of the side effects should be better.
Meanwhile, Mike O’ goes into hiding, but is still there…
Thandi’s TB progresses quickly, she loses lots of weight and feels tired.
The side effects get better, Thandi wonders if she should
keep taking her medicine…
Because Thandi didn’t take her medicine and the TB progressed rapidly,
Mike’O has spread and is now not just in Thandi’s lungs, but in several places!
When visiting the clinic, the doctor tells Thandi that the TB has changed!
It seems it’s now multidrug-resistant, so she needs different, stronger medicine, that will have worse side effects…
In addition to losing lots of weight, having a cough, and night-sweats,
Thandi notices there’s blood every time she goes to the toilet,
and her back hurts a lot.
Thandi has been going to the clinic each day for her Directly Observed
Therapy, her side effects have been getting quite bad, she still wonders
if she should keep taking the medicine each day…
After many months of going to the clinic each day, the doctor finally tells Thandi that the TB is cured!
The infection is gone, but there is some underlying damage that it left – Thandi always feels breathless and the
doctor thinks that wont ever go away, they called it a chronic symptom that she will now have
the rest of her life.
Thandi’s TB has now progressed so much she has to go stay at the hospital for a long time.
After some months, the doctor at the clinic tells Thandi that she’s all better! Thandi no longer needs to take any medicine, no longer has stomach ache, and best of all, no longer has TB!
Congratulations, your choices have resulted in Thandi being cured!
TB can affect people differently – the medicine can have some side effects, but completing the full treatment, exactly as the doctor prescribed, gives the best chance for patients to fully recover.
Congratulations, your choices helped Thandi survive the TB infection, but she has developed some long term health issues, called chronic conditions.
Some people who survive TB still have health problems afterward, like trouble breathing or feeling tired all the time. But if they take all their medicine the right way and don’t miss any doses, they have a much better chance of getting fully better and avoiding long-term problems.
TB is still a disease that kills over a million people every year all around the world.
It’s vital for people with TB to take all their medicine exactly as the doctor says, because stopping early or missing doses can make the disease much stronger and harder to cure.
If more people with TB are able to complete their treatment, we may see a world one day where no one dies from it!
Thandi has been taking her new medicine regime for a short while, but
she can already feel the side effects are worse – her stomach still aches, but her sweat
now comes out orange, and her hands and feet feel numb and tingly too.
Visit
What's on
Learn and play
Youth Scheme
Quick links
Website by Hut Six Digital
