haven't?" the woman demanded. Her face was puckered with frustration,
her voice edged with irritation. Poorly fitting dentures clipped her
words. "I'm too weak to walk and almost too tired to care," she
added, her voice dropping to a whisper. Dr. Bilal Ahmed nodded
sympathetically. He had heard about the woman's mysterious debility
from the resident who admitted her to Highland Hospital in Rochester
the night before.
A couple of years earlier she started "walking like a drunk," she
told the slender, middle-aged doctor. Her legs were weak and her feet
were numb. The only feeling she had in them was a pins-and-needles
sensation, as if her feet had gone to sleep and never woke up. A few
months ago she started falling. She broke her ankle in a particularly
bad fall; the ankle got better, but she didn't. Now she was in a
wheelchair.
Her internists referred her to a neurologist, who sent her to the
hospital for an M.R.I. After the test she was so weak that the
doctors were reluctant to send her home, and she was admitted to the
hospital. And here she was, hoping for an answer.
More ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06fob-diagnosis-t.html?
ref=magazine
