FIRST PERSON: MY LIFE WITH A CHRONIC ILLNESS
Dawn · Zayan Ajanee ·
After a year of misdiagnoses in Karachi, a student-athlete turned Crohn’s disease into a research question, and a reason to keep
Imagine losing 15 pounds in two weeks. It might sound like a dieter’s dream; for me, it was a warning sign.
I was a student-athlete, specialising in high jump, at the start of my high school journey in July 2023. That year, I went from hospital to hospital in Karachi as doctors repeatedly misdiagnosed my symptoms. My family and I lived with the quiet dread of an illness no one could identify.
For a time, my life revolved around repeated blood tests, doctor visits, second and third opinions, endless examinations and trials-and-errors with medication. The ordeal would have rattled any high schooler, but it was especially difficult when the illness itself affected my gut.