The doctor was confident.
“I can assure you, there is nothing wrong with your kidney.”
Tamara Keith had been living with pain around her left kidney. Not a little twinge now and then. Over the next six years, she would be admitted to the hospital more than 30 times with severe pain, vomiting, dehydration and other symptoms.
She was treated repeatedly for kidney infections.
Most of the cultures came back negative.
The pain kept coming back anyway.
And eventually something else began to happen.
When the tests couldn’t explain Tamara’s symptoms, people began questioning Tamara.
Her pain was discredited. Her motives were questioned. Her honesty was doubted. She picked up labels along the way.
Functional.
Attention seeking.
And eventually one that caught my attention:
The annoying “expert patient.”
She kept looking anyway.
The thing nobody was finding
Eventually Tamara became convinced she knew what was wrong.
Nutcracker syndrome.
I’d never heard of it either.
The short version is that a vein carrying blood…
