Nuestra Casa exhibition at the Univeersity of Texas at El Paso. (Danya Hernandez/Borderzine.com)

Tuberculosis cases are more plentiful in states along the U.S.-México border

EL PASO — For three years a woman roamed the border region with an infectious disease, not knowing her health kept deteriorating and that she was endangering those closest to her. This is the story of Rachel Orduño, a social work graduate student at the University of Texas at El Paso, who in 2003 began having a recurring cough. Doctors of both sides of the El Paso-Cd. Juarez border region diagnosed and treated her for everything from bronchitis, pneumonia, to the common cold. “I began with the most common symptoms. Continuous cough, weight loss due to lack of appetite, sweating at night and then I begin having trouble breathing,” Orduño said.

Guadalupe Vargas, 62, a diabetes patient, lives her life in bed. (Idalí Cruz/Borderzine.com)

More than a million border residents suffer from diabetes

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CIUDAD JUÁREZ – After 20 years with diabetes, she lives her life in bed, watching her favorite soap operas on T.V., occasionally talking to her husband or asking for something she needs. After suffering kidney failure four years ago Guadalupe Vargas, 62, needs peritoneal dialysis every four hours to clean her nonfunctioning kidneys. “My life is not the same anymore. I can’t do anything. Diabetes also affected my eyesight.