Photo by halonfury
Most of my family works in medicine, and I did my college studies on minority access to standard health care, so needless to say, this caught my attention. And the attention of everyone around her. She proceeded to (loudly) tell her friend on the phone that she picked up latent TB (most likely) during a trip to Peru where she stayed an extra two weeks to party and hook up with Latin guys nearly a year ago. Then she declares this “is totally unfair” because she already caught something from her exploits down there (thankfully she didn’t disclose what exactly she picked up) and hadn’t she suffered enough!
At this point, people began moving away from her because clearly she is a harbinger of bacterial plague. She tells her friend all about the meds she has to take for the next 6 months and how she cannot drink at all according to her doctor. However, she proudly exclaims that she will be ignoring her Doc to go to so-and-so’s rager next week and she wants to get “fucked up!” Which, may I remind you is how she ended up at UCSF to begin with! She concludes that the Doc is just trying to scare her and she should’t have to change anything. Then, two blocks away from my stop, she gets into a coughing fit that doesn’t let up until we reach the light at 19th and Judah, which saw a very quick, mass exodus of people getting off or switching to the front train.
I exited the train and went home and showered, scrubbing extra hard. But now, every time I get on the N-Judah, I always think of the young lady and hope that she hasn’t contracted drug-induced hepatitis from drinking while on her anti-TB regime. Or that she hasn’t coughed on a bus that day.
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