Ay-yi-yeee! the pain running down the back of my arm—like a jolt of current traveling a frayed electric cord—caught me off guard. I had never felt a sensation quite like it. On the other hand: Why not? I had just finished a grueling week of hospital consults. My middle-aged frame was simply complaining in a new way, right? I probably just needed rest. “Move over, Ollie,” I mumbled. My dozing spaniel made space on the living room couch and I soon drifted off, pain forgotten.
Two days later, my fingers found a roughened patch of skin in the same area as that high-voltage twinge. I craned my neck but couldn’t see it. Finally, angling a mirror, I found the telltale lesion: a single nickel-size spot studded with small, fluid-filled bubbles. Aha, I thought to myself. So that explains the burning nerve. That was the moment I realized my body had won a secret battle that I had barely noticed.
But this isn’t my story—it’s Penny’s. Dr. Penny Nelson isn’t just a patient; she’s a longtime friend who has spent decades tackling malnutrition in developing countries. It’s hard to believe the lively pediatrician is now in her 80s. She still travels to a research site in western Kenya where, I have no doubt, the sight of her warm smile, salt-and-pepper hair, and sturdy leather sandals is as beloved to her African coworkers as it is to her colleagues here in the United States. Most recently she has been studying the effects of high-protein foods on child growth and maturation.
Knock on wood, Penny’s health is as strong as her will to teach, trek overseas, and live a full, exciting life—and she does everything she can to keep it that way. Last year, however, something strange and disturbing happened to her. Out of the blue, a few days before leaving Kenya, she developed a low-grade fever, knifelike head pains, and one-sided hearing loss.
