Seonai's World Column 1: 12-07-07 www.tbsurvivalproject.org/seonaisWorld/2007_07_12.shtml Who is Seonai? Seonai Gordon is a 40 something female battling TB. She is originally from Scotland, with no patriotic feelings therefore considering herself as a human being, address; The World. She is well travelled, quite smart and has never knowingly hurt another person in any way. Seonai is a former nurse, turned journalist and you can Google her name - 'Seonai Gordon' - to read some of her other articles. She welcomes emails but cannot claim to be in a position to offer medical advice. She can, however, put you in touch with the right people if you ask. Column 1: 12-07-07 Welcome, everyone, to my world! In this regular column I will share my experiences of having and living with TB with you, my readers. The journey has been, and still is, a long one and my intention here is not to bore you to death with tales about myself, but to allow you an insight into my thoughts and to see just how dramatically TB affects the sufferer's life. These ramblings will, I sincerely hope, help those just diagnosed with TB, those who've had it before, those who still have it and the health professionals who deal with it. And we're not going to be depressing here, just telling it like it is! To create a bigger picture I'll tell you a teensy bit about myself and a quick run down of the background info leading up to my diagnosis and where I am at present. Me. I'm a normal (fairly!) woman, brought up in Scotland, I have a University degree, I am a journalist and a mother and I have a great passion for all things South East Asian. I was first diagnosed with TB in Scotland while working for the Glasgow Herald and had a relatively easy time of it. Two weeks of treatment and I was back to work and I seem to remember feeling reasonably well. It's likely that I got TB in Asia but it's also just as likely that I picked it up in Scotland! Most people are unaware that there is a lot more TB in Britain than they might want to believe. I got over that episode and forgot about the dreaded disease. After a spell of working for the London media my son and I headed out to Asia again and I started working for various magazines. Life was sweet. I remarried and went to live on a small tropical island in Thailand. About two years ago I started to cough. It went undiagnosed for a year with doctors telling me it was hay fever etc and my body going downhill fast. By June last year I was coughing up a freezer bag full of disgusting green stuff a day, so ravaged by the TB that I had no appetite, lost loads of weight and was lying on the sofa from morning to night believing the end of my life was near. And it was. My husband dragged me to the local hospital again, and this time I was so bad that they stretchered me off the island to a mainland hospital. After a month, friends and family shipped me back to Britain and a new journey began. I don't want to make this first column too long so I'll end with the current situation and fill you in on the last year later. I currently have approximately 25% of my lungs functioning well, I have recently come out of an eight week hospital stay, I can't walk up hills or stairs and even on flat ground I have to sit every few meters. Yesterday my consultant called me and told me that surgery to remove a massive cavity in my right lung is imminent. I am still on the medication and will be for another year as far as I know. But, guess what, I'm feeling positive, the Grim Reaper seems to have left me for now and I'm going to heal myself at least mentally - because that is REALLY important. If you are out there with TB, help is available, you'll need it so keep checking this website. www.tbsurvivalproject.org/seonaisWorld/2007_07_12.shtml