I picked up John Green’s Everything is Tuberculosis as an adjunct to my family genealogical research. I had found “consumption” and “tuberculosis” and even “pthisis” on many ancestors’ death records, so I wanted to know more about this disease.  Wow did I get a lesson!

Everything is Tuberculosis is an easy read, short chapters, less than 200 pages, with a compelling personal story of one TB patient woven throughout.

Before reading Green’s book, my knowledge of TB was, I thought, more extensive than most people’s. While that may be true, I was still under-informed. 

TB still has some of the previous century’s romantic image lurking:  the blood on the handkerchief, the wan poet, the fainting, pale woman (cough-cough!). Think descriptions of alabaster skin, thin, frail bones and plenty of time to gaze out the window and write poetry.

Did you know that in 2023 the US had nearly 10,000 cases of active TB infection?  Turns out TB is lurking in a great swath of all populations. Maybe even in you or me! Most of us have immune systems that can deal with the bacteria by walling it off in affected cells. But if your immune system is weaker or compromised, TB can take hold. That’s why current drug ads often warn you to be tested for TB before taking a new biologic drug. Most well nourished, otherwise healthy people who live in western countries with access to good medical care will be cured if they get active TB (even if they have a drug-resistant strain of TB). Yet, in 2022 there were still  565 deaths from TB in the US.

In other parts of the world TB hits significant population percentages very hard.  These rates are impacted by a lot of factors, but Green’s book is clear that poverty, malnourishment, racism are to blame for most of the long, painful deaths by what I think of as a curable disease.

So, what’s all this got to do with your Hero’s Journey? We all know that racism and classism are powerful impediments to any goal.  Everything is Tuberculosis lists many people I would call a Hero and when you read the book, you’ll see them, too. When you encounter your own tribulations (yes, even sexism, racism, classism) look to these heroes, their work, and take pride to be among them.

Go read that book!