I walked into the emergency room and was confronted immediately. “Twenty-year-old woman, vomiting for 12 hours,” Andreas, my ER resident, told me. “Total body pain, fevers, can barely walk.”
He handed over the nursing note. “Chief complaint: chills, fever, nausea, vomiting.” Surprisingly, the patient’s temperature, pulse, and blood pressure were normal.
“Normal vitals and no fever?” I asked. “Can’t be too sick, can she? Gastroenteritis?”
“She looks pretty bad,” Andreas responded. “And there’s something else. Two weeks ago they treated her for a bladder infection. She finished the antibiotics. A few days later the burning and frequency returned.”
“Let’s say hi,” I suggested. Curled into a ball, the young woman barely looked up as we walked in. Her mother stood by her bedside, holding vigil.
