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TB-AIDS DIARY: Translations *Language: English (original texts)* Click on thumbnails for larger images. (back to Translations menu)
	TB-AIDS DIARY by Linda Troeller In 1933 my mother caught Tuberculosis. Since a child, I was intrigued with my mother's snapshots which are included in these collages. What made these images so suddenly important last year was my recognition that there are so many parallels between TB and AIDS. Both are deadly, infectious diseases and in both cases patients have been victimized out of ignorance and unreasonable fear. It's been reported that an increasing cause of death in AIDS patients is TB. The Diary section from the 1930's is fiction based on research. The AIDS reports have been repeated from the major press. The models in the collages do not have either disease.
	Coughing up Blood Nightsweats Coughing up Blood Tiredness Coughing up Blood Passion Passion Passion Passion Passion Passion Passion
	June 10, 1933 The doctor warned me that while I was on the train traveling to the TB sanatorium, I should put the blood I cough up into a handkerchief. Then put it into a bag and throw the bag away when the train makes a stop. (Inset: "Fig. 6 Thomastown, La. June 1940 Nurse Marguerite White of the La. Delta FSA project showing a tuberculosis patient how to make her own paper cups which can be burned after having been used. Marion Post Wolcott, Farm Security Administration. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress.")
	June 20, 1933 I began sweating from the intensified heat in the Sun Solarium. The San was built on the crest of a hill, a magnet for the morning sun. (Inset: Electron micrograph of red blood cells against a vessel wall.)
	white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague white plague
	November 21, 1933 Shortly after I turned my night light out, I heard the shrill sound of wheezing — that begins with a cough, rises to a strident shriek and then fades away. Wheezing pierces through the hallways and passes floor to floor, like an ambulance siren whizzing along a city street. The wheezing wells up in the late afternoon, and then disappears into relative quiet until someone chokes for breath in the middle of the night. The wheezing sound makes me wonder who is dying. Will I be the next to die? Locusts live deep in the hollow of my chest. They mate and lay new eggs. They seem to hibernate now and all is calm until they hatch and larvae burrow into my lungs.
	March 24, 1934 My chest empties. . . . My chest. I am nursing my chest. There is only a cavity full of pus for the locust. I was rotting before the TB came. "Bleached bones in the moonlight," Brave New World, Huxley.
	May 10, 1943 When the women go home, they will go shopping, play with their children, and catch up on the latest styles and face creams. They will try to reconstruct their lives the "way it was before." But there are TB tests, X-rays; employers don’t hire some people from here back. People are afraid to have you over for dinner.
	INFECTED WITH
	May 28, 1987 I never liked being marked as having had TB. I was lonely away from my family but they never stopped caring. No one will like being marked. Care for each other. (Ray visits April 1934.)
	Ageism. Sexism. Racism. Hate. Ignorance. Fear. TB. AIDS: Social Stigma and Physical Handicap. Stigma: A mark of shame or discredit. Stigmatize: To mark with stigmata. The religion of precious blood. Whose blood? We see ourselves in them. Their mortality is ours. In Africa when a Zulu dies, everyone goes down to the river to be cleansed. Who is not unclean?
	April 3, 1984 I'm a hairdresser and since I hadn't even told my clients my son was gay I couldn't tell them the truth about his AIDS. When I finally told my co-workers and clients, I said it was cancer. I knew many clients would not come back to the salon if I said it was AIDS.
	May 9, 1984 I longed to share this with another mother but their names are kept secret. When I learned a woman started a Mother of AIDS Patients Group, I did also.
	passion fever passion fever passion fever passion thrush thrush thrush thrush thrush thrush thrush tuberculosis tuberculosis tuberculosis tuberculosis pneumocystis pneumocystis pneumocystis kaposis sarcoma kaposis sarcoma lymphomae lymphomae lymphomae lymphomae genital warts genital warts genital warts genital warts nightsweats coughs nightsweats coughs nightsweats coughs
	August 10, 1984 My son isn't physically strong anymore. Will he is forced to go to an AIDS quarantine zone?
	September 6, 1984 My son didn't come to his sister's wedding. He knew the Kaposis sarcoma on his face would be all the guests would see — not a joyful brother. It's very sad, but perhaps he was right not to go. Many people can't handle AIDS.
	September 28,1984 I thought TB was only a disease of the Third World these days. But now AIDS patients are getting it. We finally got drugs for TB but there's no drug to save my son.
	October 9, 1984 I went to my son’s community 3 weeks before he died. I found things I wasn’t prepared for — his falls, hallucinations, preoccupation with medication. We needed help badly. In the last round-the-clock days we had to invent our courage as we went along. We became a band of 6. God and my son ran the show.
	June 2, 1982 I often think about my granddaughter. Who will she think her uncle was? And why did he die so young? Will her love-life be fearful? Will she lose someone she loves?