Red Bluff Daily News

April 28, 2015

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ByEmilySchmall TheAssociatedPress DALLAS The dark days of quarantine are over, yet Louise Troh remains cap- tive to the disease that killed the man she loved. "War took the life I made in Liberia. Disease took the life I made in America," she writes in a memoir being released next week. The fiancee of the first Ebola victim in the U.S., Thomas Eric Duncan, hopes "My Spirit Took You In" pro- vides some resolution to a story that spanned two de- cades, from a border town in Ivory Coast to a Dallas hospital. The book, written with former journalist Chris- tine Wicker, traces Troh's life as a refugee from Libe- ria's civil war to an exile in America, through the lens of that love. With Duncan gone, and the frenzy to contain the disease quieted, Troh finds some comfort in the idea that his illness raised awareness in the United States about Ebola, which was ravaging West Africa at the time and killed more than 10,000 people in the latest outbreak. "Suppose Eric had not come here to become the face of Ebola, then the whole of Liberia would be in darkness," she told The Associated Press in her first interview since his death. Duncan came to visit Troh in Dallas last Septem- ber and the two planned to marry, cementing the rela- tionship that started nearly two decades earlier. They had a son, Karsiah, who's now 19. But while Troh was able to emigrate to Boston in 1998, Duncan couldn't get a visa. After years of trying, he finally obtained one. Troh borrowed $2,500 from a Liberian acquaintance and bought his ticket. But four days after ar- riving, Duncan was in the emergency room at Texas Health Presbyterian Dal- las. Troh writes that she told two nurses that Dun- can had come from Liberia, though the hospital says it did not learn then of Dun- can's origins. Troh wonders whether greater emphasis could have helped. "I wish I said to everyone, the nurses, the doctor, 'Li- beria. Liberia. Liberia. He is only six days here from Liberia,'" she writes. Duncan was diagnosed with a sinus infection and sent home with a prescrip- tion for antibiotics. As his condition deteriorated, Troh, a nurse's aide, wrote that she suspected his di- arrhea was caused by the antibiotics, and the fever by malaria or typhoid. She tells AP she never contem- plated Ebola, since Duncan had been screened at the Li- berian airport. "If he was sick on the plane, don't you think he would have been set aside? No, he became sick here. He did not mean to bring Ebola to the U.S.," she said. Then, while Troh was at work, her daughter, Youn- gor Jallah, found Duncan shivering and fully dressed in bed. Jallah, also a nurse's aide, called an ambulance, warning the crew that Dun- can had just come from a "viral country." They returned wear- ing face masks and rubber gloves. "I was never thinking that he had Ebola. When he got sick, I thought, let me call the ambulance and just for their protection, tell them that he was from a country with this disease. That's all. I'm not a doctor," Jallah says. When Duncan tested positive for Ebola, Dal- las County officials imme- diately confined Troh, her son, Duncan's nephew and a family friend to the two- bedroom apartment where he had become sick. With- out air conditioning and with curtains drawn, the apartment was hot and dark. In the book, Troh recalls spraying bleach on surfaces and bagging used linens, shaken with fear that she would contract Ebola. Her dread grew when a crew in hazmat suits sealed off the apartment with plastic. "It's like I wasn't on Earth any more. I was ex- pecting death at any time," she told AP. Outside, officials scram- bled to contain the disease and deal with public con- cern. After two of Duncan's nurses contracted Eb- ola, the number of people in quarantine being mon- itored by Dallas County rose to 179. Some schools were closed. Sen. Ted Cruz pushed for a ban on flights from the hardest-hit coun- tries in Africa. Duncan's family suspects he received inadequate care, while the hospital has repeatedly said any such al- legations are untrue. "I know Louise has ques- tions, and really there's not anything to be done at this point," said her pastor, George Mason. "If she were to dwell on those matters, it would be more difficult I think for her to get on with her life." Duncan's legal family — his mother, sister and nephew, who live in North Carolina — settled with the hospital for an undis- closed sum that was divided among his parents and his five children. Karsiah Dun- can is using the money for tuition at Angelo State Uni- versity. The settlement also went toward paying back the $2,500 Troh borrowed for Duncan's ticket. In the Dallas townhouse she purchased with an un- disclosed advance for her memoir, Troh says she is counting on book sales to help achieve a dream: building a clinic, school and orphanage in Liberia. She has already bought two tracts of land. "It has always been my plan to go back," she told AP. BOOK FianceeofEbolavictimhopesmemoircloseschapter THEASSOCIATEDPRESS Louise Troh is handed her two-week-old grandniece Tyra Glekiah from her niece Angnes Glekiah at Troh's home in Dallas. The fiancee of the first Ebola victim in the U.S. hopes her memoir provides some resolution to a story that spanned two decades, from Africa to a Dallas hospital. By Mike Stobbe The Associated Press NEW YORK The govern- ment is lowering the rec- ommended amount of fluo- ride added to drinking wa- ter for the first time in more than 50 years. Some people are get- ting too much fluoride because it is also now put in toothpaste, mouth- wash and other products, health officials said Mon- day in announcing the change. Too much fluoride has become a common cause of white splotches on teeth in children. One study found about 2 out of 5 adolescents had tooth streaking or spot- tiness. Fluoride is a mineral in water and soil. About 70 years ago, scientists dis- covered that people whose drinking water naturally had more fluoride also had fewer cavities. Since 1962, the govern- ment has been advising water systems to add fluo- ride to a level of 0.7 parts per million for warmer cli- mates, where people drink more water, to 1.2 parts per million in cooler areas. The new standard is 0.7 every- where. Grand Rapid, Michigan, became the world's first city to add fluoride to its drink- ing water in 1945. Six years later, a study found a dra- matic decline in tooth decay among children there, and the U.S. surgeon general en- dorsed water fluoridation. But adding fluoride was — and has remained — controversial. Some peo- ple have vehemently fought adding fluoride to local wa- ter supplies. Today, about 75 percent of Americans get fluori- dated water. The change announced Monday finalizes a pro- posal first made four years ago. The government spent years sorting through and responding to 19,000 pub- lic comments. CDC on fluoridation: http://www.cdc.gov/ fluoridation. DENTAL HEALTH US lowers fluoride in water; too much causing splotchy teeth ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO Tianna Swisher, a student at Liberty Valley Elementary School in Danville, Pa., attempts to drink from the water fountain at Montour Preserve near Washingtonville, Pa., during an outdoor field trip. Fluoride in drinking water may now be too much of a good thing. 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