His Fever, My Secret: Diagnosed at Midnight
Chapter 3: New Revelations and Rising Stakes
Just then, his girlfriend told me she was sure he had TB. She met my gaze, eyes fierce. She’d connected the dots and was certain.
"How do you know?" I asked, curious but cautious. Sometimes people talk themselves into worst-case scenarios in a hospital waiting room at 3 a.m.
She said he not only had lung TB, but also intestinal and lymph node TB. She’d just Googled and realized the little lumps on his neck were swollen lymph nodes. She pointed them out, describing the swellings she’d found.
Her knowledge was impressive, but I felt a prickle of anxiety—sometimes laypeople see things that aren’t there, but sometimes, they’re dead on.
But I couldn’t focus on that, because suddenly I was sweating—cold sweat trickling down my back. My heart thudded in my chest, my scrubs sticking to my skin.
"Wait, what did you say? He has swollen lymph nodes in his neck?"
My voice was sharper than I intended, echoing off the sterile walls. Both of them looked startled. She stammered, saying she’d noticed but didn’t think it was important—everyone with a fever gets them, right?
She hesitated, voice shaky, explaining how she’d noticed the lumps but assumed they were normal. I reassured her gently, but inside, my mind was racing—fever, weight loss, cough, diarrhea, lymph nodes. All signs pointed to something serious. Some nights in the ER, you can almost feel the next crisis coming. This was one of them.
