Kumail Nanjiani And His Wife Reveal Worries About Her Health Condition

"The Big Sick" stars Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon recently opened up on how they handled living with Gordon's susceptibility to illness. The couple got married in 2007, shortly after the producer came out of a medically induced coma.

Eight months after they initially met, Gordon was diagnosed with a rare inflammatory syndrome known as adult-onset Still's disease (AOSD). The writer was also given an immune system impairing diagnosis in 2017.

During an interview, the couple revealed that to curb the heightened possibility of Gordon contacting COVID-19, they maintained a very strict lockdown and only left the house when absolutely necessary, like for the 43-year-old's doctor's appointments.

Read on to learn more.

Nanjiani and Gordon recently joined People Magazine to talk about how they lived through the COVID-19 pandemic, especially with the producer's health condition. Since her diagnosis in 2007, Gordon has lived with inflammatory syndrome.

Ten years after the AOSD diagnosis, the 43-year-old was given another diagnosis for an immune deficiency illness which caused the body to produce insufficient antibodies to protect the individual. The disease, common variable immunodeficiency (CVID), also leads to a heightened risk of infections for the patient.

During the interview, Gordon revealed that when the pandemic set in, she felt like people could finally see life from her point of view. She added, "Essentially, my body does not make the things that helped me fight off illness — anywhere from huge illnesses to your common cold. So I have had to be incredibly careful for years now."

Gordon further revealed that before the pandemic, she had suffered from several illnesses. Her health condition became even scarier after the writer realized that she was more likely to be at a higher risk than most in terms of contracting COVID-19.

To ensure this didn't happen, Nanjiani revealed that they were very strict with their lockdown and, for a year and a half, barely stepped out save for Gordon's doctor meetings.

The cautious behavior continued even after the duo got vaccinated. The 44-year-old admitted that he always gave great thought before leaving the house due to his wife's health condition. Nanjiani explained, "It's sort of become our habit to avoid everything. And so now it's sort of a little bit of trying to readjust to being able to do some things."

He continued, "For me, it's been the transition from just surviving to thriving, trying to sort of return to some kind of normalcy. Taking risk calculations every time we do anything."

According to Gordon, she became significantly healthier during the pandemic because they strictly observed the lockdown. She recalled going to see family members and attending events with the knowledge and acceptance that she would possibly come down with something after.

The 43-year-old explained, "In many ways, I got healthier in the pandemic because I suddenly was not around other people's germs. Other people's germs have always been my kryptonite. But it felt interesting to finally go, 'Oh, this is what it's like to not get sick every few months. This is actually quite nice.' I got a weird taste of what it felt like to be completely healthy, which is a very sad thing now that I just said it out loud."

Gordon further revealed to People that despite living with AOSD and CVID for so many years, she was tired of living in fear. She said, "For immunocompromised people, we have had to oftentimes live in fear. I'm not interested in living in fear."

The couple recently partnered with AstraZeneca in their educational campaign, "Up The Antibodies." The campaign was reportedly set up to enlighten the immunocompromised about the options they could choose to remain healthy during the ongoing pandemic.

Gordon revealed that she felt frustrated constantly seeing the immunocompromised and elderly excluded while talking about people getting back to their daily routines. The new project reportedly placed this faction of people "front and center" of the matter.

The 43-year-old added, "The only way for me to be completely sure of my health is to stay inside and never leave the house. And I'm not interested in leading that kind of life. That's why I'm very happy to be involved with this campaign because I'm hoping to bring more advocacy, more research, more information, more stories because then we can all be armed with the most important thing, which is information. We haven't had that for quite some time."