John and Henry Reider, a Sierra Leonean teenager with multidrug-resistant TB he met at Lakka hospital (2019)
story · status: told 7×, last update 2026 · last event: retold (2026-08-03)
In 2019 John met Henry Reider, a teenager with multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, at the Lakka TB hospital in Sierra Leone; Henry was cured, went to university, and became a through line of John's book Everything Is Tuberculosis. In 2025 Henry spoke at the Union conference on lung health in Copenhagen, while Isatu, invited with him, was denied a visa.
Origin known from later mentions
2019 in the title is when this began; it first appears in the videos read here in 2023, so the earlier part is known only from what is said later.
Told alongside: John asks viewers to subscribe to Henry's YouTube channel (2023) · John: help share Henry Reider's fundraiser to build a well in Freetown (2024)
About: Lakka TB Hospital, Sierra Leone, Henry Reider, Henry Green, Sarah Urist Green
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-08-15 (happened 2019) | told | In 2019 John visited the Lakka TB hospital in Sierra Leone and met Henry, who shares his son's name and seemed his son's age; Henry showed him around, and John assumed he was a nurse's child. | Henry 00:00:00 |
| 2023-08-15 | update | Returning to Lakka with Sarah in 2023, John is reunited with Henry, who was cured after a bedaquiline-based cocktail and now attends university. | Henry 00:03:43 |
| 2024-08-06 | update | John's friend in Sierra Leone, Henry Reider, is trying to build a well in Freetown to address the water crisis there. | What Helped Through Depression 00:01:56 |
| 2024-10-22 (happened 2019) | retold | John says in 2019 he visited a tuberculosis hospital in Sierra Leone, met a boy who shared his son's name, and came home obsessed with tuberculosis. | My New Book: Everything Is Tuberculosis 00:00:33 |
| 2024-12-10 | retold | Like most of his books, John says, it stars a smart teenager who loves poetry: Henry Reider, a young man who lived with tuberculosis for most of his childhood. (playful) | On Writing 00:03:23 |
| 2025-01-10 (happened 2019) | retold | Kirkus, read by Hank, says that after John met a sick boy, Henry, in Sierra Leone in 2019, he set out to learn everything about TB and concluded it persists through racism, greed and public-health economics. | SECRET PROJECT ANNOUNCEMENT! 00:03:58 |
| 2025-03-18 (happened 2025-03-17) | update | John says Henry told him yesterday that his dream is 100,000 subscribers and the silver plaque, and asks viewers to help make it come true. | ITS ALL HAPPENING 00:02:58 |
| 2025-11-13 | retold | John says his friend Henry, an MDR-TB survivor in Sierra Leone, credits Dr. Girum Tefera and also his mother, who brought him extra food when many are abandoned by families. | Fighting TB in Kids: A Discussion with Doctors without Borders 00:47:09 |
| 2025-11-24 | update | John tells Hank he has been traveling to Denmark and England; in Denmark he attended the Union Conference on Lung Health with Henry Reider, whom viewers know from Everything Is Tuberculosis. | Good Store Holiday Gift Guide LIVE with Hank and John 00:00:00 |
| 2025-11-25 | retold | John recalls that Henry Reider inspired his interest in TB and that Henry's effort to survive multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is a through line in Everything Is Tuberculosis. | Poverty Is Expensive 00:00:00 |
| 2025-11-25 | update | John tells how Henry and Isatu, invited to the Union conference in Copenhagen, waited about 25 days in Ghana for visas; Isatu was denied, while Henry got his visa and spoke at the conference. | Poverty Is Expensive 00:01:56 |
| 2026-02-13 | mentioned | John says P4A donations support structural change and individual lives like his friend Henry Reider, in the chat, whom he wrote Everything Is Tuberculosis about and who would not be alive without Partners In Health. | Project for Awesome 2026 Kickoff! 01:42:50 |
| 2026-08-03 | retold | John cannot reconcile himself to his friend Henry having almost died of TB and living with its scars. | Esther Day 2026: Some Thoughts on Loss 00:02:13 |
What is said about it
16 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2023-08-15 · Henry — The description thanks Henry, Dr. Girum Tefera and his Lakka colleagues, and Partners In Health for introducing John to Henry. — video description
- 2023-08-15 · Henry — John: A doctor told John that Henry was a patient they were very concerned about: Henry was 16, not nine like John's son; tuberculosis had ravaged his body. — 00:00:29
- 2023-08-15 · Henry — John: Before getting sick Henry was a great student who dreamt of university; his mother Isatu worked hard to pay his school fees with a small market business selling scented oils and perfumes. — 00:00:29
- 2023-08-15 · Henry — John: When John met him, Henry was out of school and had been a full-time patient at Lakka for over two months, receiving injections for multidrug-resistant TB. — 00:00:58
- 2023-08-15 · Henry — John: The injections were not working for Henry: he lost weight, TB-swollen lymph nodes became open wounds, and he bled so much he needed blood transfusions. — 00:01:27
- 2023-08-15 · Henry — John: Henry's mother Isatu paid the equivalent of thousands of dollars for his treatment, finding blood and supplies, and lost her business and apartment in the process. — 00:01:56
- 2023-08-15 · Henry — John: Henry's lab work showed the injectables had failed; Dr. Tefera later told John that, seeing no options, he thought they would lose the boy. — 00:02:26
- 2023-08-15 · Henry — John: Henry knew how sick he was and what it meant: he had seen his best friend at Lakka die of multidrug-resistant TB after the injectables failed. — 00:02:26
- 2023-08-15 · Henry — John: When John and Sarah returned to Lakka in 2023, John asked a nurse about Henry; she said he was there that day, wanting to see John, and they reunited. — 00:03:43
- 2023-08-15 · Henry — John says Henry was the first in Sierra Leone to get the bedaquiline-based cocktail; he recovered 'like magic', walking and laughing within three weeks, was cured and went home after over two years at Lakka. — 00:04:15
- 2024-08-06 · What Helped Through Depression — John donated to Henry's well project, promised to help share it, and links it in the doobly-doo. — 00:01:56
- 2025-11-25 · Poverty Is Expensive — John says Henry, having survived drug-resistant TB, is a successful college student one semester from graduating and an advocate for people living with the disease. — 00:00:00
- 2025-11-25 · Poverty Is Expensive — John says Henry often visits Lakka, Sierra Leone's only tuberculosis hospital, to remind patients that the disease is curable and they can live long, healthy lives. — 00:00:00
- 2025-11-25 · Poverty Is Expensive — John says Henry and his mother Isatu were invited this year (2025) to the big annual Union tuberculosis conference in Copenhagen, which John was also invited to attend. — 00:00:29
- 2025-11-25 · Poverty Is Expensive — John says he hadn't seen Henry since 2023 and wanted to thank Isatu for saving Henry's life by bringing him extra food and staying by him through three years in hospital. — 00:00:58
- 2025-11-25 · Poverty Is Expensive — John says Henry and Isatu stayed in Ghana rather than pay about $2,000 to fly home and back, and waited around 25 days instead of the expected 15 for a decision. — 00:01:56