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Denise's Story - from Lauren Lambert

1994 -One of my favorite assignments in the field was as a TB PHA working in Brooklyn, New York City. I searched the streets of Bedford Stuyvesant for "lost" and delinquent tuberculosis patients. I became close with a very special patient, Denise, 16-years old, who was infectious when I located her. How about seeing human blood getting hosed out of an elevator at a housing project in Brooklyn? She sometimes lived with her 2-year old son and grandmother. I started court-ordered Directly Observed Therapy (DOT) with her in the field, which was often difficult due to her heroin addiction. (Denise said she wasn't an addict, explaining to me that she would NEVER shoot it, just snort it). I bribed her with bags of my old clothes -she could choose one item each day she was compliant with DOT (meaning she was where she said she would be.) This, in addition to many McDonalds meals and rides, proved to be a successful way to ensure completion of her TB treatment, and with much encouragement, she also enrolled in a Methadone Maintenance Treatment Program.

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