Bertha (a pseudonym) lives in La Paz, Bolivia, and her medical history provides insight into the effects of chagas. She suffers from chronic heart ailments from Chagas' disease.

As a child living the 1930s, she was bitten by vinchucas and infected with T. cruzi when she lived in Tupiza, a small rural village in Bolivia. She later married and bore four daughters. In 1960, she moved to La Paz after her husband abandoned the family. She made a living by sewing for wealthy people, but in 1974 she was diagnosed with Chagas' disease.

She tells the story of her life and how she copes with chagas. Until she was forty-four she was healthy, going up and down the hills of La Paz to do her sewing. In 1974 she felt fatigue. She began to get a swollen throat and spit blood. She didn't know what it was, she had no idea it had to do with the vinchucas bites years before. She would get tired, fatigued, and experience dizzy and fainting spells. She continued to do her sewing though she sometime would faint while she was working. The fainting spells continued for a year; the next year her fainting got more severe and she eventually suffered a stroke. Her children took her to a doctor, Dr. Jauregui, who hospitalized her. She underwent testing, xenodiagnosis, that indicated she had Chagas' disease. X-rays showed that she didn't suffer from cardiomegaly (and enlarged heart), but that she probably had lesions in her heart's electrical system. These were caused by T. cruzi amastigotes being encysted in her cardiac tissue. This condition can be fatal.

Dr. Jauregui implanted a pacemaker in 1980 when Bertha's heart rhythm worsened. The pacemaker keeps the heart rhythm constant and Bertha's condition improved. She was able to resume her seamstress work, although she suffered minor fatigue as she climbed the sreets of La Paz at 12,000 feet.

Two of Bertha's daughters also suffer from heart problems. The eldest daughter was born with heart trouble and is always fatigued. After Bertha learned that chagas can be transmitted congenitally, she encouraged her daughters to undergo testing. The eldest daughter refused the testing because some tests are irritating. Other serological tests, such ELISA Immunosorbent, are available and involve the mere drawing of blood. The other daughter was tested by zenodiagnosis, and has tachycardia (a rapid beating heart). Her results were negative for chagas.

"Sarah"

Sarah is a girl from Tarija, Bolivia. By the time she was seven, she had been bitten by vinchucas as she slept. Her mother removed the bug from her nightie, squashed the bug on the floor and blood squeezed out. Sarah's mother had grown up in a house filled with vinchucas and hated them. Her mother said that the bugs were inside their house, and she removed unnecessary items from their sleeping areas but the walls needed to be plastered. Sarah, though, didn't mind vinchucas and didn't know that they were the cause of much suffering. Her ducks liked to eat vinchucas.

Sarah likes to dress up dolls and wants to someday grow up to be a hairdresser. That may happen, although the vinchucas' bites may change that. T. cruzi may have already infected Sarah.