I saw a 68-year-old male patient in the outpatient clinic and heard the story he told, which was very typical. It was very educational for me as a tuberculosis doctor and for other patients with similar conditions, so I am writing it to share with you in the hope of saving some patients from repeating the same mistake. Buddhism says, “Saving a life is better than building a seven-step pagoda”. I am not able to see many patients in person, so I hope my article can help more patients. One year ago, he found a mass in his right upper lung, which was surgically removed by a foreign hospital. The surgeon recommended that he come to our hospital for treatment of tuberculosis. The patient thought, “I’ve already had the tuberculosis in my lung surgically removed, and I don’t have any discomfort now, so I don’t need any more treatment.” So he didn’t go back to the hospital. Six months later, the patient started to cough and went to our clinic. A chest CT revealed a new lesion of tuberculosis in the lower right lung, and the doctor told him to start taking anti-tuberculosis medication immediately. Before taking the medication, the patient had to go to the nurse’s desk, read a side effect notification form for the anti-tuberculosis medication and sign it before the doctor could prescribe it. This patient was so frightened by the side effects that he quietly ran home without asking the doctor. Still no treatment. After another six months, the patient’s cough got worse and worse, and he developed a fever, blood in his sputum, and chest tightness and shortness of breath, so he had to come back to our hospital. This time I was the one who saw him. A chest CT revealed a new cavity in the lower right lung, a new tuberculosis lesion in the upper left lung, and a new pleural fluid in the right chest. I told the patient and his daughter that the disease was getting worse and it would be too late if they didn’t get treatment. This time it would not just be an outpatient medication, but it would have to be hospitalized because this pleural fluid would have to be drained out in the hospital. They were still struggling: How dare I take this anti-tuberculosis drug with all its side effects? I patiently explained: Anti-tuberculosis drugs do have side effects, but they do not occur in everyone, and generally speaking, only about 15% of patients experience significant side effects. But if one does not use anti-tuberculosis drugs, tuberculosis will certainly kill him. Weighing the pros and cons, there was no doubt that the only right decision was to accept anti-tuberculosis treatment. When I said this, the patient and his daughter finally made up their minds to accept anti-TB treatment. I prescribed anti-tuberculosis drugs and told him to start taking them immediately that day, and then he was hospitalized to drain his chest fluid. After that, he was followed up in my clinic for a year without any significant adverse drug reactions, and finally got his life back, but there were some sequelae: sometimes he had vague pain in the right chest, coughing, and felt breathless when he was more active. This is because the lung function was damaged. If he had started anti-tuberculosis treatment right after the surgery, he would not have needed to be hospitalized again, but only had to take medication for 6 months, and basically he would not have had these sequelae. The patient and his daughter said: I wish I had met you earlier, you made it so clear that we would have started treatment earlier. I laughed: Your lack of the necessary minimum trust in doctors is the root cause of this outcome. When the surgeon suggested coming to our hospital for treatment, you didn’t come; six months later your condition was already serious, and our doctor wanted to give you anti-tuberculosis treatment, you didn’t even give the doctor a chance to explain and ran away on your own. You know nothing about medicine, but you prefer to trust your own judgment but not the professional judgment of the doctor. If you keep stubbornly sticking to your own opinion, then the only end will be death. Conclusion: After surgical removal of tuberculosis, you must also take anti-tuberculosis drugs, otherwise the tuberculosis bacteria will grow back in the area that was not removed. (Note: The same is true for TB in other areas)