A year later, Ebola victim’s fiancee deals with loss,
Fiancee of 1st U.S. victim can’t work amid reminders
A year ago, Lou
DALLAS — ise Troh had a job she liked, a cramped apartment fifill ed with relatives and hope for better times with the love of her life on his way to Dallas from Africa. A year after Ebola invaded her home, that’s all gone.
Thomas Eric Duncan got to Dallas from Liberia on Sept. 20, 2014. After living with Troh and her
family in that tiny apartment for eight days, he was hospitalized and diagnosed with the deadly blood disease that was ravaging his homeland. On Oct. 8, he was dead.
In an interview with The Dallas Morning News, Troh bounces between grief and gratitude, memories of her hopes and the crushing reality of her present. The toddlers she cares for during the day — grandchildren and a niece — give her “inspiration and love.”
She remains angry that some blamed Duncan for bringing Ebola to America. People in his home village said he didn’t know he had been exposed, and she has said he told her before he died that he would never have risked infecting her.
She’s still bitter that offiffic ials destroyed almost all of her possessions — in spite of what is known about the virus — days
after Duncan was hospitalized. Even under ideal circumstances, the virus dies quickly.
Troh and her daughter, both certifified nurse aides, had already bleached and cleaned up everything Duncan had touched in that apartment. Their work probably kept the virus from spreading.
Troh said she and her family were quickly forgotten. The aid given to them those fifirst months is gone. And she is embarrassed to ask for more.
But she says she can’t bear going back to work because people know her as the “Ebola woman.” It’s not that others are cruel, Troh said; it’s that she can’t deal with the reminders every time someone recognizes her.
A book she co-wrote with former Dallas Morning News staffffffffffff er Christine Wicker, “My Spirit Took You In: The Romance that Sparked an Epidemic of Fear,” has had only modest sales. But Troh said it was worth the effffffffffffort .
“People can read it and read the truth. Long after I am gone,” she said.