(This piece is an abridged extract from the book Tuberculosis—India’s Ticking Time Bomb: The Survivors’ Manifesto (Editor Chapal Mehra). The author is a contributor to the volume.)
(Saurabh Rane is an MDR (Multi-Drug-Resistant) TB Survivor and a marathoner. He is part of an advocacy group ‘Survivors Against TB’. His dream is to climb India’s highest peak on two half lungs. FIT will be bringing you stories of survivors in the lead up to World Tuberculosis Day, 2018)
I was training to be a doctor when I started feeling sick. After two weeks of continued fever, cough and immense weight loss, we decided to go for an x-ray and found I had fluid in my left lung. The doctor told me that it was TB.
I was started on medication but didn’t feel better even after a few months. In confusion and exasperation, I pushed my doctor for a left lung sonography to determine the cause of fever. During the sonography, my doctor accidentally coughed and his hand moved to my right lung. There were close to 1000 cc of fluid in my right lung. I was devastated, because now both my lungs were infected.