Ep. 57 | Faces Everywhere/The Perfect Condition

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A woman in her 60s sat in the passenger seat of her car as her sister drove them both towards the hospital.

And as they drove, the woman did her best not to look in the back seat.

Because she knew what was waiting back there.

Faces staring back at her.

And not faces attached to bodies, just floating heads with menacing smiles.

These faces had been following her for days.

She saw them everywhere, even when she closed her eyes.

But right now, she felt like as long as she kept her eyes straight ahead on the road, she wouldn't have to see them.

And so as this woman stared unblinkingly ahead, she kept telling herself again and again that those faces couldn't hurt her because they weren't real.

Even though, every time she saw one of those floating faces, they sure seemed real to her.

And somewhere deep down, she knew these faces wanted something from her.

She just didn't know what it was.

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From Ballin Studios and Wondery, I'm Mr.

Ballin, and this is Mr.

Ballin's Medical Mysteries, where every week we explore a new baffling mystery originating from the one place we all can't escape, our own bodies.

So, if you like today's story, the next time the follow button asks you for a Coca-Cola, say, is Pepsi okay?

And when they say, okay, yeah, sure, go ahead and bring them a Diet R C.

There's a common phrase that goes, you have to see it to believe it.

And when it comes to healthcare, you'd think that doctors and nurses have seen it all.

But there are still some things that are just so crazy, so unexpected, that even the most seasoned medical professional can hardly believe their eyes.

On today's episode, we have two medical stories that amazed both the patients and the medical staff alike.

The first story is about a woman who can't seem to escape a malignant presence that follows her everywhere.

And the second story is about a man who feared he was dying from lung cancer until his astonished doctors discovered what was really causing all of his issues.

And now here is our first story called Faces Everywhere.

On a Monday morning in March of 2005, a 67-year-old retired teacher named Jane Miller woke up at her home in Ohio.

She yawned and stretched, feeling well-rested after a relaxing weekend.

The previous day, she'd gone to church with her family, then out to to breakfast at their favorite diner, and she'd spent the rest of the day picking up around her house at a very leisurely pace.

But after Jane sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes and then opened them again, she yelped in shock.

There, floating directly over her, was a disembodied head.

Jane frantically reached over to her nightstand and grabbed her glasses.

She slid them up her nose and looked again, hoping to see something different, i.e., not a floating face.

But nope, there was definitely a floating face hovering right near the ceiling.

And this face, in addition to being very odd because it's floating around in a room, also just looked totally bizarre.

The head was shaped almost like a football, and it had piercing eyes and these yellowed buck teeth.

And the face stared down at Jane with a hint of malice in its expression.

Jane was obviously terrified.

She leapt out of bed and raced downstairs to get away from this ghost in her room.

Adrenaline was coursing through Jane's body as she fought to catch her breath, and when she reached the kitchen, she whipped around, and luckily, the ghost face was now gone.

It had not followed her.

With shaking hands, she grabbed the phone and called her older sister, Melissa.

She knew that if anybody would believe this story, it would be her big sister.

Ten minutes later, Melissa flew down the street towards her sister's house, risking a speeding ticket in this residential neighborhood to get to Jane's house faster.

She pulled into Jane's driveway and threw the car into park, and then ran ran up the walkway to Jane's house.

The moment Melissa stepped inside of Jane's house, immediately something felt off.

She couldn't explain it.

There was just a coldness in the air.

She called out for Jane and found her sister in the kitchen, still in her PJs, sitting in front of an uneaten bowl of cereal.

It had been sitting there so long that the Cheerios were bloated and soggy.

Jane looked up at Melissa, but her eyes were distant and her face was pale and scared as she whispered that the faces were now above her and beside her and everywhere else she looked.

Melissa glanced around, but all she saw was the empty kitchen and her sister sitting there with her soggy bowl of cereal.

And so Melissa just asked Jane, like, hey, are you feeling okay?

And Jane nodded and said, I'm not crazy, I'm telling you the truth.

And suddenly, Melissa just felt so bad for Jane and she assured her that, you know what, everything's going to be fine.

She told Jane, I don't think you're crazy.

But inside, Melissa thought, oh my goodness, something mentally could be wrong with her.

And that's when a realization dawned on Melissa, and she felt a chill run up her spine.

Melissa had read about this kind of thing on Facebook, and she knew exactly who she needed to call.

The next day, Melissa was back at Jane's house, anxiously anticipating the arrival of her guest.

Just then, she heard a knock at the door, and Melissa raced over to greet Father Raymond Smith.

He'd been the pastor at Melissa's church for almost 15 years, and Melissa hoped he'd be able to help Jane.

Melissa thanked Father Smith for coming over on such short notice, and she explained how worried she was for Jane, and invited him to follow her upstairs to Jane's bedroom.

Father Smith smiled and told Melissa that whatever was going on with her sister, they would get to the bottom of it.

Melissa crept up the stairs to Jane's bedroom with the sound of Father Smith's footsteps right behind her.

And right as Melissa reached the top of the stairs and turned the corner into Jane's bedroom, a wave of icy cold seemed to hit her.

To Melissa, it immediately seemed like malicious presences were hovering all around her sister, and they didn't like it when Melissa was in the room.

Jane was lying in her bed, the covers pulled up to her face.

Melissa knew her sister had her eyes closed under there because pitch darkness made it harder to see all the menacing faces all around her.

Melissa quietly told Jane that help had finally arrived, and Jane, when she heard this, threw back the covers to see who was there.

She blinked and said hello to Father Smith.

though she was clearly surprised to see him there.

Melissa smiled to herself because this had been her intention, to make sure the creatures that were menacing Jane had no idea who was coming over here.

Melissa turned to Father Smith and invited him to begin.

Then Melissa stood to the side while Father Smith shook Jane's hand and asked her to explain to him what had been going on over the past couple of days.

Jane was a little embarrassed as she began to describe what she was seeing and what she was feeling, but Father Smith didn't actually seem to be listening.

Instead, he was studying Jane's hands very carefully, and he was watching her expression and all of her bodily movements, and Melissa even wondered, you know, what was he doing?

Finally, after Jane stopped explaining what was going on with her, Father Smith told Jane why he was there.

He said her sister, Melissa, had called him yesterday, worried that Jane was suffering from demonic possession.

Melissa nodded in the corner.

From the moment Jane had described the hallucinations to her, Melissa suspected that a dark entity was possessing her sister.

and so she'd called Father Smith in the hopes that he could identify the demons and maybe perform an exorcism to get get rid of them.

Father Smith was the most devout priest Melissa had ever met.

If he couldn't banish the demons back to hell, it was doubtful anybody else could.

Except when Father Smith spoke again, he looked at Melissa and told her that he actually wasn't sure there were any demons to banish here.

He explained that as Jane was speaking, he'd been trying to see if she had full control of her body.

and from what he could tell, Jane was fully in charge of her movements.

He hadn't seen any of the involuntary twitches or ticks that typically accompany demonic possession.

Then the father looked back at Jane and asked her to follow the movement of his finger as he whirled it all around in front of her.

Father Smith just shook his head as he watched Jane follow his finger flawlessly.

And then Father Smith said that in his opinion, Jane needed to see a doctor, not an exorcist.

Melissa was sort of dumbfounded and asked Father Smith if he was absolutely sure.

And Father Smith said that, yeah, the dead giveaway to him at least was that Jane knew her hallucinations were not real.

But Father Smith promised that if doctors could not figure out what was wrong with Jane, well, the church would call a certified exorcist who was properly trained within the Catholic Church, and that exorcist could examine Jane's psychological state and determine whether she was genuinely possessed or not.

Melissa decided this was a good compromise and agreed to take Jane to a hospital right away.

Father Smith thanked her and then offered to pray over Jane before he left.

Melissa said that would be nice and prayed silently as Father Smith recited a blessing with his hands outstretched.

Three days later, Dr.

Randall Crane stood in a hospital room with Jane, watching her sketch a little doodle on his notepad.

Dr.

Crane was an internal medicine resident at the hospital, and Jane was the most fascinating patient he'd had in a long time.

She'd been suffering from these crazy hallucinations for the past few days and was scared that she was losing her mind.

Now, Crane didn't know if that was actually true, that she was losing her mind, but he could not explain why she was hallucinating faces all the time, and so he couldn't rule out some form of dementia.

And so, Dr.

Crane, kind of on a whim, had asked Jane to go ahead and sketch on his notepad what she was actually seeing, like draw the face.

And so Jane finished sketching and handed the notebook back to Dr.

Crane, and she warned him that she was no artist, but this is really what she was seeing floating over her head right now and all the time.

Dr.

Crane looked down at the doodle that Jane had drawn.

The so-called demon face had an oblong, football-shaped head with big buck teeth and round, bulging eyes.

It looked more like a Muppet than a monster.

In all honesty, it actually reminded him of the main character in an old children's cartoon called Hey Arnold that the doctor had watched all the time when he was a kid.

But even if the sketch was sort of funny, he took Jane's condition very seriously.

He clearly understood why she'd be terrified to see something like this following her around all the time.

And so Dr.

Crane asked Jane a few questions, like whether these hallucinations had spoken to her or or if she was experiencing headaches, fever, or seizures around the time these hallucinations appeared, and she said no to all of them.

And so Dr.

Crane told Jane not to worry.

He was going to order some routine blood work to see if maybe she had an infection.

And he also ordered a toxicology screening just to rule out any bad drug interactions.

An hour later, Jane sat on the examination table feeling very anxious.

Dr.

Crane told her that all her tests had come back normal, which actually initially made Jane more nervous.

She wondered if now she and Melissa would have to call that certified exorcist after all.

But Dr.

Crane did not seem like he was totally confused.

He actually said, Jane, I want to look at your eyes more closely.

And so Jane leaned forward and then followed Dr.

Crane's instructions as he first tested her peripheral vision and then also her forward eyesight.

And then afterwards, Dr.

Crane informed Jane that she had a couple of small blind spots in her vision that he had just discovered that made him want to examine her retinas a bit more closely.

Dr.

Crane took a little vial of liquid out of his white coat pocket and then told Jane to look straight up.

He was going to dilate her retinas, the light-sensitive tissue at the back of the eye that transmits what we see to the brain.

The doctor would first pour a little of that liquid into her eyes, and then he would use a device called an ophthalmoscope to shine some light on her retinas and get a better look at what was going on.

And so as the liquid made her eyes become more sensitive, the light from the ophthalmoscope stung a bit, but Jane did her best to stay still as Dr.

Crane looked at her retinas.

And then finally, Dr.

Crane switched off the ophthalmoscope and he smiled.

He would order a CT scan to confirm his theory, but he was pretty sure he knew exactly what was going on.

And two hours later, the CT scan confirmed Dr.

Crane's suspicion.

He told Jane that he'd seen some tiny yellow tissue deposits behind her retinas.

These are a sign that her retinas are deteriorating, a condition called macular degeneration.

It happens to lots of of people as they age, their eyesight gets worse, and because of that, the brain gets less visual information from their eyes.

Now, most people with macular degeneration end up with nothing more serious than slightly blurrier eyesight.

But in about 10% of cases, the brain tries to compensate for the lack of information by making up new visuals.

For reasons that are still not clear, many of these people who are in this 10%

see floating faces.

It's very rare, but the symptoms are so consistent amongst patients who suffer from it that Dr.

Crane immediately understood what Jane's problem was the moment he saw her drawing that football-shaped head doodle.

Three months after her diagnosis, Jane was unfortunately still having hallucinations, but they were growing more infrequent.

Dr.

Crane told Jane that while there was no treatment, the hallucinations can stop over time as the brain becomes more accustomed to vision loss.

And at the very least, Jane could rest assured knowing that she was not possessed by a demonic entity and she wasn't losing her mind either.

She just had a very creative brain.

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Here is our second story called The Perfect Condition.

On May 19th, 2010, 75-year-old Ron Sfieden was at home in Brewster, Massachusetts, relaxing in his favorite armchair and flipping through TV channels in search of something good to watch.

He'd finally settled on a game show when his wife Nancy called him for dinner.

He sighed and turned off the TV, muttering about how he'd just gotten comfortable.

He hobbled out of his chair and adjusted the plastic tube that he wore under his nose to help him breathe.

The year before, Ron had been diagnosed with emphysema, a lung disease that causes shortness of breath.

Emphysema is common in smokers, and Ron had been a smoker his whole life.

Now, as a result, he needed an oxygen tank tank just to breathe properly.

Ron sat down at the dining room table just as Nancy set a plate of scallops in front of him.

Ron caught a whiff of melted butter, but his stomach didn't rumble with hunger the way it usually did when he smelled Nancy's amazing cooking.

In fact, he didn't have an appetite at all, which was a shame because Nancy's scallops were his favorite meal.

But Ron didn't want to be rude, so he thanked Nancy for dinner and tried to eat as best as he could, but he really just couldn't and just kind of pushed the food around his plate.

And then when Nancy was done eating, Ron quickly got up and helped her clear the table and clean up before Ron settled back down to watch more TV.

Two weeks later, in early June, Ron was back in his favorite armchair in the living room, working on the daily crossword puzzle.

He wasn't feeling his best, because he really had not eaten much since that scallop dinner a couple weeks ago.

Now, Ron didn't think too much of it.

He was getting older, and so he thought maybe he just didn't need as much food.

Ron reread a clue on his crossword puzzle that had been stumping him all morning.

He started to call out for Nancy, hoping she could help him, when a small tickle rose in his chest.

He cleared his throat, and then all of a sudden he began coughing and hacking, and he couldn't stop.

His chest felt stiff, like there was a wall of mucus that just was not breaking up, as he leaned back in his armchair, coughing so hard it was getting hard to even breathe.

He heard footsteps behind him, and a minute later, Nancy was by his side with a glass of water.

Ron tried to sip some down, but another cough hit him and he spit the water everywhere.

By the time this coughing fit passed, Ron's throat was so sore.

He'd never experienced a cough like that and it really scared him.

He worried his emphysema was getting worse.

Later that night, Ron was in his bedroom putting on pajamas when his back suddenly went stiff, almost like a spasm.

He straightened up and kind of yelped in pain and then threw his head back as another coughing fit overtook him.

He hacked and coughed until he was shaking, and then Nancy came into the bedroom and rubbed his back until finally, Ron began to recover.

Once he had, Nancy asked him if he wanted to call the doctor, but he told her no, clearly his emphysema was just getting worse and he would just have to deal with it.

After decades and decades of smoking cigarettes, he knew his lungs just were not what they used to be.

A few days later, Nancy was moving all through the house vacuuming and cleaning up, trying to prep the house for Ron's sister and brother-in-law who were coming over to visit.

The couple had just gotten back from Scotland on a vacation, and they were coming over to talk about the trip and catch up.

Secretly, Nancy hoped they'd brought home some Scottish shortbread to share.

Just before 5 p.m., the doorbell rang, and so Nancy called out to Ron, who was asleep in his armchair when she last saw him.

Then Nancy threw open the front door and embraced her in-laws.

She was always happy to see them, but especially right now.

She wanted to be around family.

Over the past few days, Ron's coughing fits had become so severe and so frequent, I mean, it was kind of scary.

It was common for Ron to be doubled over and hacking up a lung 15 or 16 times a day.

And so Nancy was genuinely worried about Ron's health, and so just liked the idea of having some family around, maybe take her mind off of that for a second.

Nancy's brother-in-law handed her a brown bag that smelled like butter and seafood.

Nancy opened it as she led the way inside, and the bag was full of her favorite lobster rolls.

Not from Scotland, but just from down the street.

However, still, it was a welcome treat.

Nancy led everyone into the living room where Ron was still fast asleep.

Nancy shook his leg and told him his sister was here, but Ron didn't move.

Nancy frowned, but she could see Ron's chest was rising and falling, so he seemed okay.

And so she told her in-laws it might be best not to wake him.

His coughing fits had been really bad lately and clearly had been tiring him out.

Nancy moved into the kitchen to grab plates for the lobster rolls.

She could hear her in-laws taking seats in the dining room.

And just then, Nancy heard a familiar, horrible cough erupt in the living room.

Nancy felt terrible for Ron as she listened to him hacking.

She knew it was also very painful for him.

His throat had been raspy and hoarse for the last two weeks because of these coughing fits.

Then, Ron started gasping between his horrible coughs, like he couldn't even breathe.

And then Nancy heard him groaning a little as though he was calling out for help.

And so Nancy rushed into the living room.

Ron was rocking in his chair, fighting for air between these violent coughs.

His entire body was shaking, and Nancy thought he might be having a seizure.

Panicked, she dialed 911.

For the next few minutes, Nancy and her in-laws tried to soothe Ron until the EMTs finally arrived.

By the time they had Ron on a stretcher and were rolling him into the ambulance, one of the EMTs told Nancy that she'd been right to call.

Ron's blood pressure and oxygen saturation levels were dangerously low.

If she hadn't called, Ron would likely be facing organ failure.

And so as the EMT helped Nancy up into the ambulance, she felt terrified.

Now Nancy was the one who was shaking as the ambulance door closed and they whisked their way towards Cape Cod Hospital.

The next morning, the pulmonary and critical care specialist at Cape Cod Hospital, Dr.

Scott Slater, made his way to Ron's hospital room.

When Ron was brought into the emergency room the previous night, he had been quickly diagnosed with pneumonia, a lung infection that creates a buildup of fluid in the air sacs.

For someone of Ron's age, pneumonia can be a very dangerous and even deadly condition.

Now, the ER doctor had immediately given Ron antibiotics to help him fight off the infection, but so far Ron was not getting better.

So, just an hour ago, Dr.

Slater had ordered a chest x-ray, and now, because of that x-ray, he had a better idea of what was going on inside of Ron's lungs.

Dr.

Slater knocked on the doorway and walked into Ron's room.

Ron was lying in bed, hooked up to an IV and an oxygen tank.

Ron looked pale and tired, and his breathing was labored.

Nancy was sitting in a chair beside him, and she looked up from the newspaper she'd been reading and gave Dr.

Slater a weak smile.

Dr.

Slater gave her a sad look and then delivered the bad news.

Ron's x-ray had revealed that he had a collapsed lung, which was likely causing his pneumonia.

Dr.

Slater guessed that the lung had collapsed because something was blocking an airway.

He needed to get a closer look by performing a bronchoscopy, which meant sliding a little camera down Ron's throat and into his lungs.

After giving Ron an injection of local anesthesia, which would mean Ron was awake but unable to feel pain, Dr.

Slater slid the camera down Ron's esophagus.

And immediately, the problem became clear.

There was an abnormal-looking mass at the top of Ron's left bronchial tube.

Dr.

Slater couldn't tell what this mass was, so he took a little tissue sample of this mass to send to the labs for analysis.

After he'd pulled the camera out of Ron's throat, Dr.

Slater explained to Ron and to Nancy that he had found this mass inside of Ron's lungs.

Now, it would be a few days before they'd know for sure what it was, but the doctor felt they should know right now that that mass could be cancer.

As Dr.

Slater left the hospital room, Ron felt terrified.

But Nancy, she shook her head and told Ron there was no point in panicking until they knew the biopsy results.

And then she kissed Ron on the forehead and told him she was going to step into the hallway and call their kids and his sister and let them know what was going on.

Ron watched his wife leave, feeling his chest tighten, but not because another coughing fit was coming on.

He was thinking about how much time he'd have left if the biopsy came back positive for lung cancer.

It could be a matter of months or maybe even less.

The thought of leaving his family now brought on this horrible wave of fear.

He could feel tears welling up in his eyes as he looked out into the hallway and watched Nancy pace as she called their loved ones to break the terrible news.

Four days later, Ron was still in the hospital, sitting up in bed, tray of hospital food in front of him.

He still wasn't hungry, so he just drank the juice out of the little plastic fruit cup they'd they'd given him.

Meanwhile, Nancy, who had barely left his bedside, was doing her best to try to coax her husband into taking a few bites.

But just then, Ron heard a knock and looked up to see Dr.

Slater standing in the doorway.

Instinctively, Ron knew Dr.

Slater had the biopsy results, and so Ron braced himself for the worst.

But then, a smile crept across Dr.

Slater's face.

He told Ron and Nancy that there were absolutely signs of infection in the tissue, but no cancer cells.

Ron was so relieved, he almost started crying.

He rubbed his eyes and felt Nancy's hand squeezing his shoulder.

Ron breathed in as deeply as he could, trying to steady himself.

He didn't have cancer, but there was still a mass in his lung, and Ron thought that couldn't be normal.

And so he asked Dr.

Slater, you know, since this mass was not a cancerous tumor, well, what is it?

Dr.

Slater admitted to Ron that he didn't know, but he hoped that a second biopsy would help him find out.

Ten days later, Dr.

Slater sat in the office of a colleague, Dr.

Jeff Spillane.

Dr.

Spallane was a thoracic surgeon who specialized in the organs and tissue inside the chest.

Dr.

Slater had always considered him a good friend, and now Dr.

Slater hoped that Dr.

Spallane could be a good consultant, too.

Dr.

Slater was feeling frustrated with Ron's case and really needed a second opinion.

Dr.

Slater explained to Dr.

Spallane that Ron's pneumonia had persisted and his cough had gotten worse over the past week and a half.

It was almost like Ron's body was trying to cough up the mass on its own.

But after two biopsies, Dr.

Slater still didn't have any idea what this mass was.

It looked like a tumor, but it was not cancerous, so it wasn't clear why it was making Ron so sick.

Dr.

Slater bounced his knees impatiently as Dr.

Spillane read through Ron's file.

Finally, Dr.

Spillane suggested that they do a third bronchoscopy.

but this time they would put Ron under general anesthesia.

If Ron was totally unconscious, they could do a more in-depth examination of Ron's chest.

Dr.

Slater was skeptical, but at this point, he was willing to try anything.

So he agreed to let Dr.

Spillane perform this procedure.

Around 2 p.m.

that afternoon, Dr.

Slater was sitting in his office when he got a call from his friend Dr.

Spillane.

He'd just finished Ron's bronchoscopy, and now he said he had only one question for Dr.

Slater.

Did he have any dirt?

For a moment, Dr.

Slater was sure he'd misheard Dr.

Spallane, until Dr.

Spallane repeated himself and said that Dr.

Slater was going to need some dirt for the thing he'd just found inside of Ron's lung.

A sprouting pea plant, as in a living vegetable.

Dr.

Slater couldn't believe it.

Ron must have eaten a raw pea that quite literally went down the wrong tube.

Instead of landing in his stomach, it got into his lung.

And there, the moist and warm conditions inside the lung were just right for the little pea to sprout.

According to to Dr.

Spallane, the pea sprout was about half an inch long.

It had clearly been in Ron's lung for a while because it was so coated in mucus that it looked like a little tumor.

Dr.

Spilane had easily removed the pea and surrounding mass, and Ron immediately began feeling better.

Within a few days, he was coughing far less frequently and his pneumonia disappeared.

Ron still had emphysema, but it was far more manageable without the hacking cough.

His appetite returned as well.

In fact, his first meal when he left the hospital included a side of peas.

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A quick note about our stories.

We use aliases sometimes because we don't know the names of the real people in the story.

And also, in most cases, we can't know exactly what was said, but everything is based on a lot of research.

And a reminder, the content in this episode is not intended to to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

This episode was written by Aaron Land.

Our editor is Heather Dundas.

Sound design is by Ryan Potesta.

Our managing producer is Sophia Martins, and our coordinating producer is Taylor Sniffin.

Our senior producer is Alex Benedon.

Our associate producers and researchers are Sarah Vitak and Taja Palaconda.

Fact-checking was done by Sheila Patterson.

For Ballin Studios, our head of production is Zach Levitt.

Script editing is by Scott Allen and Evan Allen.

Our coordinating producer is Matub Zair.

Executive producers are myself, Mr.

Ballin, and Nick Witters.

For Wondry, our head of sound is Marcelino Villipando.

Senior producers are Laura Donna Palavoda and Dave Schilling.

Senior managing producer is Ryan Moore.

Our executive producers are Aaron O'Flaherty and Marshall Louie for Wondry.

Mike and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

When Alyssa got a small water bottle, Mike got a gallon water filter.

When Mike started gardening, Alyssa started beekeeping.

Oh, come on.

They called a truce for their vacation and used Expedia Trip Planner to collaborate on all the details of their trip.

Once there, Mike still did more laps around the pool.

Whatever.

You were made to outdo your vacations.

We were made to help organize the competition.

Expedia made to travel.