Nelly Cuéllar hit rock bottom in April 2014: her addiction to bazuko (a hallucinatory drug) combined with tuberculosis nearly killed her. Today is a different story. Happy, in peace with life and with her family, this resident of Bogotá, Colombia, shows how perseverance and discipline are necessary to be cured.
— March 2016 —
Nelly was admitted to Simón Bolívar Hospital in Bogotá with symptoms of severe malnutrition. She couldn't walk and had no desire to live. It was then that she was found to have tuberculosis. She began treatment but abandoned it after a month and returned to the streets, and to drugs, complacency, and despair with life.
"Finally, I got tired of it and, seeing myself cut off from other people, I said: God, if you have something big in store for me, leave me here; if not, kill me. And that's when things began to change for me," she says in a broken voice.
Along the way, Nelly met Claudia Jeréz, a health technician who for the past six years has been assigned to the TB program at Simón Bolívar Hospital. Claudia became her savior. When Nelly sees Claudia--"my boss," she calls her--her eyes light up, her voice catches, and her heart swells. "You have no idea what I feel inside," she says. Nelly recognizes that she managed to recover from tuberculosis thanks to Claudia's single-minded efforts: supervising her daily to be sure she was taking her medication, while also helping her refocus her life to discover who she was.
After the streets, prison became Nelly's home, and Claudia followed her there. They made a "pact": Nelly promised to take her medicine without fail, and Claudia promised to monitor her case, evaluate her, advise her, love her. While still in prison, Nelly continued taking her medication and learning more about TB, and how to prevent and control it. And the word spread among her cellmates.
In order for a tuberculosis patient to recover, the full treatment is necessary for six continuous months. Attentive monitoring by health workers is also required. Claudia and her team visit prisons, shelters, and homes to see TB patients. They put a great deal of effort into saving the lives of people like Nelly, who against all odds, overcame the disease, gained weight, joy, and "courage for life," she acknowledges.
People deprived of their liberty are more vulnerable to catching TB when someone in the group is sick. Overcrowded conditions and poor access to health care encourage the disease. This means that governments should implement policies that include health care in prisons and access to medicine for TB patients.
"There are a lot of women here and I can bear witness: What might seem like a simple cough is enough to get TB going," Nelly reports.
Six years ago Claudia was transferred from her area and landed in the TB program knowing almost nothing about the disease. There she discovered her talent for service and for learning from people. "My first patient was a drug user who lived in the streets. I realized that they're only looking for approval and shouldn't be judged, because they might abandon their treatment," Claudia says, launching into the many stories about people she has been involved in helping to cure. Unlike her previous job, this one allows her to see direct results, like in Nelly's case.
"She has changed, recovered, gained weight; her hair has changed, her eyes shine, she smiles. Everything has turned out well and it's wonderful to see," she concludes.
