You are tormented by unexpected bouts of vomiting, and agonizing abdominal pain so severe that it can be accompanied by seizures and delirium.
You have visited every medical center in the country, and they have found nothing wrong. You have had repeated scans and ultrasounds, and your abdomen is covered with surgical scars from repeated negative "exploratory" operations. All the laboratory tests are negative, and your own doctor is talking about sending you to a psychiatrist.
But they are all wrong.
You are actually a carrier of a mutated gene that causes Acute Intermittent Porphyria -- an inherited illness caused by a defective enzyme that normally breaks down the oxygen-transporting porphyrin molecule nestled within the hemoglobin of your red blood cells. This produces the only clue to the illness -- wine-red urine containing porphobilinogen, easily detectable if you can only find a doctor smart enough to order the right test!
For many suffers, the worst complications come from unnecessary surgeries, drug addiction and other side-effects of medical misdiagnosis. But you can still consider yourself luckier than history's most famous victim -- the "Mad King" George III of England, who suffered a lifetime of torment at the hands of 17th century medicine -- and fumbled the American colonies in the bargain! |