The fact that his stomach did not work ironically had my stomach in knots. For weeks, I had watched this infant fade away. Although many other doctors were taking care of him, I was intimately involved. His stomach was no better than a flaccid plastic bag, yet prior to this mystery illness, he was healthy for his first four months of life.

Now, not only did his stomach not function, but he was not tolerating the nutritional supplement that was being fed to him through a tube that went through his small nose, and traversed his throat, esophagus, and limp stomach to reach the second part of the intestine. This supplement seemed to be triggering his body to reject nutrition. He poured out diarrhea and became dehydrated — truly failure to thrive.