The XX Factor: What women really think.

Why Did Summer Stiers Die?

A guest post from Robin Marantz Henig, a contributor for the New York Times Magazine (and Sam's mom!):

The death two weeks ago of Summer Stiers, a young woman I met last year and wrote about at length for the New York Times Magazine, made me think about how hard it was for her to get anyone to take her perplexing illness seriously. Whatever ailed Summer seemed to cause a wide range of symptoms, which is why nobody could quite figure out what was wrong with her. She bled from her intestines; her kidneys failed; she had chronic pain in her legs and back; she developed severe toxemia while pregnant and lost her baby; her bones were damaged; she had frequent mental blackouts attributed to seizures; she had lost one eye, and the retina in the other was damaged; she was profoundly fatigued; her hair was completely gray, even though she was only 31 ... (Read more at DoubleX.com.)