Nadeem was 27, a quiet tailor from a small town near Lucknow.
Three months ago, he thought it was just a cold.
A little cough, some tiredness… nothing unusual. He powered through it. Skipped the doctor. Took a few leftover tablets from his cousin and got back to work.
But the cough never left.
Instead, it grew deeper. Dryer. Meaner.
At night, he’d wake up sweating, changing his shirt by 3 am. He blamed the summer humidity. His mother said it was nazar. A neighbour said maybe it was stress.
Then came the weight loss.
His jeans began to hang loose. His belt looped two holes tighter.
He started skipping meals… not because he didn’t want to eat, but because every bite made him feel nauseous. Sometimes he’d cough so hard he had to spit in a handkerchief… and once, he even saw a little red in it.
He didn’t tell anyone. Not even when his little sister started coughing too.
It was only when he fainted at the sewing machine that his family dragged him to a hospital in the city.
On examination:
- Thin, pale, low-grade fever
- Slight crackles heard in the upper lung fields
- Chest X-ray showed patchy infiltrates in the upper zone
- ESR sky high
- Normocytic Normochromic Anaemia
