medical mysteries

Shortly after Thanksgiving 2009, 14-year-old old Abby Picard began complaining that her right ankle hurt. Her parents brushed it off, believing her discomfort was the result of her fondness for fashionable thin-soled sneakers and an extremely heavy backpack.

"We thought nothing of it," recalled h...

When Shannon Aud, a freshman at Virginia Tech, came home for winter break last December, she was looking forward to a few weeks relaxing with her family, hanging out with her friends and skiing at a West Virginia resort.

But on Christmas Eve, when she developed a bad sore throat, Aud figured she'...

It was the middle of the night when 4-year-old Brooke Dawn suddenly awoke in her Northern Virginia hospital room shrieking, "Ow, ow, ow!" But it was what she said next that her mother, Patricia Dawn, says she will never forget.

The noise, an incessant loud whooshing in his left ear, was driving Roger Luchs crazy -- literally.

Jon T. Hoffman knew something was very wrong with him, even if his doctors didn't.