On December 6, 2018 three members of we are TB traveled to Atlanta to be featured on the CDC website. TB is still a life-threatening problem in this country. TB knows no borders, and people here in the United States are suffering from TB. Anyone can get TB. These stories highlight the personal experiences of several people who were diagnosed and treated for TB disease, as well as the work of TB control professionals. In prior years, we are TB members, including Kate and Kelly have been featured in these inspirational videos. TB Personal Stories series help raise awareness about TB in the United States. You can view the video, print, and social media content for each survivor by visiting CDC’s TB Personal Stories website. https://www.cdc.gov/tb/topic/basics/personalstories.htm
The CDC staff made all of the survivors very comfortable, letting us relax and tell our stories in an authentic way. The emphasis this year for the survivor stories was to hit more target audiences in several different languages and provide a broad spectrum of TB cases that you may not usually see!
This year, Laura was asked to tell her story in both English and her native language, Spanish. Laura is a Spanish school teacher in Vermont! Laura has been an active member of we are TB since the beginning and she was very excited to share her story!
Kristi presented her story in regards to non pulmonary TB and her experience with TB in the eye or TB uveitis
Tenzin had a unique case of Tuberculosis as it was multi-drug resistant! He shares his stories of drug resistant TB and the medication regime he had to undergo during his story! He has been an active member of we are TB since the beginning!
Along with the TB stories, which will hopefully come out on the CDC website this fall, we were featured in "time to END TB" videos to be featured throughout the month and on World TB Day, March 24. You can find those videos here:
https://www.cdc.gov/tb/worldtbday/resources.htm
Overall it was wonderful catching up with TB survivors from around the US and being able to share our personal stories to make an impact in TB awareness and education!