WHITTIER, Calif. — Lynn Whittaker stood in the hallway of her home looking at the framed photos on the wall. In one, her son Andrew is playing high school water polo. In another, he’s holding a trombone.
The images show no hint of his life today: the seizures that leave him temporarily paralyzed, the weakness that makes him fall over, his labored speech, his scrambled thoughts. Andrew, 28, can no longer feed himself or walk on his own. The past nine years have been a blur of doctor appointments, hospital visits, and medical tests that have failed to produce answers.
“You name it, he doesn’t have it,” his mother said.
Andrew has never had a clear diagnosis. He and his family are in a torturous state of suspense, hanging their hopes on every new exam and evaluation.
Recently, they have sought help from the Undiagnosed Diseases Network, a federally funded coalition of universities, clinicians, hospitals, and researchers dedicated to solving the nation’s toughest medical mysteries. The doctors and scientists in the network harness advances in genetic science to identify rare, sometimes unknown, illnesses.
