I have my appointment with the health department to discuss and presumably start treatment for latent TB later this week. Meanwhile, I picked up the blood test report, and the nifty CD with my digital chest x-ray on it.  I also had a nice conversation with a Peace Corps Nurse, and former PCMO, in the Office of Medical Services about my diagnosis and treatment. We talked about how there aren’t a lot of TB cases coming out of Mexico. I just won the lottery. She was particularly interested if I had been living on my own or with a host family the whole time. She saw much more TB in Asia because many of the Volunteers stayed with host families for all of their service time, where TB can be rampant.

The latent TB  treatment is actually free of charge in Texas, but I’m going to get started on the process of filing my “Notice of Occupational Disease and Claim for Compensation” with the US government so that it is definitely on record that Peace Corps is responsible if I have problems in the future. I should not have future issues after the treatment, but I’m definitely getting all this filed and on record.

I *guess* I understand why keeping people from developing TB is important, but it is a bit shocking to me that treatment of 9 months of chemo­pro­phy­laxis is completely free. Meanwhile, a friend that moved from Colorado back to this state 4-months pregnant can’t get covered, because pregnancy is a pre-existing condition. Craziness.

My x-ray medical report reads,

IMPRESSION: Normal chest.

This time, I’ll take it.

chest_xray

chest_xray2

So cool. Look at that rib structure, spine too! teehee, technically it is a topless photo of me. The only one that will ever appear of me on this website, and hopefully the whole web.

Actually, the report also reads “The heart, lungs, mediastinum, pleural spaces, and pulmonary vasculature are within normal limits,” but that wasn’t as funny.

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