The XX Factor: What women really think.

Why Can't Doctors Admit it When They Don't Have an Answer?

How sad that Summer Stiers, the young woman suffering from an as-yet uncategorized illness who was profiled so heart-breakingly by Robin Marantz Henig in the New York Times Magazine, has died. At least she ended up at the National Institutes of Health where the doctors tried—unsuccessfully—to puzzle out the reason for her many medical maladies.

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.)