My mother is the strongest woman I know.
My father died during the war in Laos, when I was just a baby.
My mother ran through the Laotian jungle with me tied to her chest,
crossed the raging Mekong River with me in her arms.
In the refugee camps of Thailand,
she taught a little fatherless boy to become a man.
Now, in America, it is my job to take care of my mother.
This cough won't stop. These last several days, I cough and cough so much I can barely breathe.
My mother has been coughing for the last several months.
She struggles to catch her breath. She tells me that her chest hurts.
She has little energy and decreased appetite.
I tell her that I’m worried about her.
She tells me that old people get sick. She tells me it is just a long cold passing through.
She says she is tired because she suffers from fevers and chills.
My mother tells me that there is nothing to worry about.
I know my mother is afraid to go to the doctor.
Some of her friends at the senior care center have been talking about someone they know who might have Tuberculosis.
They are all scared. It is a disease they know from the old country.
It is a disease they know can be serious.
I read in the papers that there is an outbreak of multi-drug resistant TB in the Hmong community.
I am scared that my mother has Tuberculosis.
DOCTOR: This is what a healthy lung looks like.
This is yours. Can you see the white spots?
This is where the Tuberculosis bacteria have grown inside your lungs.
What can we do, son?
Doctor, are there we can help my mother?
Yes, there is, but the course of treatment is long,
anywhere from 18-24 months, and the medications are hard on the body.
MDR-TB is resistant to the first line drugs but if your mother goes to the hospital we’ll find medications that work.
I don’t even speak English. I don’t want to go to the hospital. It’s very hard.
I’m so sorry about that for you but you are going to have to go to the hospital because you have no right to decide on treatment.
According to the law, if you’re diagnosed with MDR-TB, you have to get treatment.
This is a way to protect the public.
Dr. Lo told us that the Hmong in Minnesota are in the midst of the biggest outbreak of MDR-TB in the history of the continental U.S.
Since January of 2016, there has been an increase in Hmong individuals diagnosed with MDR TB.
Some very elderly and some only infants. A few individuals have died.
The World Health Organization has declared Tuberculosis as the leading infectious disease in the world,
killing more than people than HIV/AIDS.
MDR-TB, while equally contagious as regular TB, is even more dangerous
because it is a multi-drug resistant strain that is hard to fight.
MDR-TB treatment often involves the patient being in isolation,
the trying of several drugs to see which combination works,
and then a treatment plan that can be anywhere from 18 to 24 months.
The medications used to treat MDR-TB are harsh.
But without taking these medications, the Hmong community will not be able to defeat this disease.
Dr. Lo has asked my mother to go to the hospital for treatment until the disease in her body is no longer contagious.
I could not help my mother despite her fear, and my own reservations about trusting the doctors.
Mother, how are you.
Leave here!
I'm contagious.
You have daughters at home waiting for you.
I am sorry, Mother. I'm sorry you have to be here
and that the medication is making you so sick and tired.
You're not sorry.
You won't even help me get Hmong cures! You don't need to be sorry.
Mother, the doctor says you have to take the prescribed medications only,
and we have to take it for the full term, otherwise you won’t get better.
I don’t know son.
Mom, I love you. Take the medication as prescribed and you’ll feel better.
There were many days when I wondered why I had survived the war in Laos, the refugee camps of Thailand,
to get to America as an old woman only to encounter this horrible sickness.
There were just as many days when I had to think back to my past,
to the young woman who thought she would die but did not in the high mountains of Laos beneath the falling bombs,
to the young mother who held her newborn son close as she waited to see if there’s a day her husband would return-
only to find his dead body in the debris of war,
to this life in America where I have lived as an old woman thinking that the hardest part of my life's work was done.
At every point there was no way to see the future.
I could not know what would happen to me.
All I knew was that if I died, then there would be no one to love my child like me, my son,
his daughters, my grandchildren, and one less Hmong person to hold our story,
our incredible survival through war and poverty, our long march into history intact.
MDR-TB treatment was the longest, loneliest journey of my life.
There were many moments when I thought I would not be able to do it,
but the doctors continued to treat me,
my family continued to support me,
and somehow I held on.
Share the story of MDR-TB with your friends and family. Talk about it.
If you or anyone you know are experiencing the symptoms of TB and MDR-TB:
coughing for three weeks or longer,
coughing up blood or brown matter,
experiencing shortness of breath,
pain in your chest,
sweating at night,
fevers or chills,
and unintentional weight loss,
Please contact your health care provider for a TB screening. TB is infectious and deadly.
Protect yourself and your family.
See Lee, is a Hmong elder who has successfully completed the medication for MDR-TB.
For more information call the Minnesota Department of Health Infectious Disease Line