Ep. 19 | Life in Paradise/The Stranger
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Hey Prime members, you can binge episodes 41 through 48 of Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries right now and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. In the summer of 1993, a doctor at a small hospital in Tennessee paced around inside of his office. At the same time, four men were inside of the hospital's ICU, or intensive care unit.

All four were comatose and in critical condition from lung and kidney failure. And bizarrely, they had all been diagnosed with the exact same disease. And the doctor had no idea how that could be possible. This disease was extremely rare.

In the previous year, it had only infected about 60 people in the entire country. And what made this outbreak even more intriguing was that all four comatose men came from the same retirement community. From what the doctor could tell, this small community was dealing with a full-on outbreak. And if the doctor didn't figure out soon why these men were getting sick, then this outbreak could spiral out of control.

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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 will explore a new baffling mystery originating from the one place we all can't escape, our own bodies. If you liked today's story, please buy the follow button a box of chocolates, but replace the chocolates with shards of glass.

There's a reason that when we get older, it's called the golden years. You get to retire and relax and spend time with your family. Of course, getting older also means more health risks. That's to be expected. But there are also dangers in our golden years that no one is ready for.

On this episode, we have two stories about older people who endure terrifying and unexpected health scares. The first story takes place at a retirement community in Tennessee, where a deadly outbreak of an extremely rare disease threatens everyone living there. And our second story takes place in France, where an elderly man has to deal with an unexpected and unwelcome intruder in his home. Here's our first story, Life in Paradise.

On the afternoon of June 19th, 1993, a man in his late 60s was enjoying a round of golf with three of his friends. His name was Pete Roberts, and as he looked for his ball near the tall trees at the edge of the course, he couldn't help but smile.

An emerald green fairway was spread out in front of him, lined with trees and dotted with clear blue ponds. He thought it might be the most beautiful golf course he'd ever played on. And he could play on it as often as he liked, which came in handy because Pete actually was not very good at golf and wanted to improve his game. A few years ago, Pete and his wife Nancy had moved to Fairfield Glade in eastern Tennessee.

It was advertised as a retirement community, but to them it felt like a vacation resort. There were hiking trails, tennis courts, and best of all, five world-class golf courses all within walking distance from their house. They'd made lots of new friends too. Fairfield Glade was full of people just like Pete and Nancy. Folks who had worked hard throughout their entire lives, and now they just wanted to enjoy life and relax. Pete carefully lined up his club and prepared to take his shot.

But as he stared down at his ball nestled in the grass, he started to feel lightheaded. He staggered a bit to regain his balance and his friends saw that something was wrong with him. So they grabbed him by the arms and shoulders, making sure he didn't fall down, and then they guided him over to the golf cart so he could sit down. As Pete sat in the cart sipping on water, he wondered if maybe he'd just gotten too much sun. Fortunately, the dizziness spell passed after only a couple of minutes, and then they all headed back to the clubhouse.

A few hours later, Pete was grilling steaks out on his deck. He and Nancy had some neighbors over for dinner, as they often did on Saturdays. Pete chatted with his friends as he flipped the steaks over one by one until the dizziness returned. On top of that, his head was starting to ache, so he carefully made his way inside and took some aspirin. But it didn't make much of a difference. During dinner, Pete barely touched his food, and he was in such a fog that he struggled to make conversation.

By the time everyone went home, Pete was really feeling rough, like every muscle in his body was aching. Nancy thought he might be coming down with some kind of flu, so she sent him off to bed in the hopes that he'd sleep it off. By the time Nancy got into their bed a couple of hours later, Pete was fast asleep, but she noticed his breathing sounded unusually deep and heavy. She considered waking him up to make sure he was okay, but decided it might be better to just let him rest.

She turned off the light on her bed stand, made a mental note to call Pete's doctor first thing in the morning, and then she drifted off to sleep. Just before dawn, Nancy woke up and realized that Pete's side of the bed was empty. She got up and immediately noticed a crack of light under the bathroom door. She thought Pete must have been using the toilet, but she still wanted to make sure he was okay. So she knocked softly on the door and called for her husband. But Pete didn't answer. She knocked again and waited, but again there was no reply.

Nancy started to worry. She turned the knob and saw the door was unlocked. But when she tried to open the door, she realized it was blocked by something inside the bathroom. Nancy could sense that something definitely was wrong here, so she pushed even harder, but still the door wouldn't budge.

And so she shoved again and again with all of her might and the door cracked open a few inches. She kept pushing and finally she was able to squeeze her head through the opening and when she looked down, she could see her husband had collapsed on the bathroom floor. Nancy's heart began to pound. She summoned more strength and forced the door open enough to wriggle her whole body inside.

She grabbed Pete by the shoulders, screamed his name and splashed water on his face. He seemed to be breathing, but no matter what she did, he just would not wake up. Nancy finally ran out of the bathroom to the phone and called 911. A short time later, a little after 6 in the morning, paramedics arrived on the scene and were immediately concerned.

Pete had a high fever, a dangerously fast heart rate, and his skin had a bluish tint. The medics wasted no time. They loaded Pete into the ambulance and sped to the nearest hospital. Around the same time, a doctor in his early 30s named David Stenson was in his office at the Cumberland Medical Center getting ready to pack up and go home. He had been assigned to work the overnight shift that weekend and was looking forward to grabbing a bite to eat on his way home before getting some well-earned sleep.

But as he locked the door to his office, a nurse ran up and told him a new patient named Pete Roberts had arrived in the emergency room and needed Dr. Stenson's attention immediately. Dr. Stenson changed course and ran to the emergency room where he saw Pete getting rolled inside on a gurney. Dr. Stenson rushed over to examine him. Pete was still unconscious and his vital signs were at critical levels. His kidneys were failing and now he had fallen into a coma, so Dr. Stenson knew he had to act fast.

The bluish tint to Pete's skin was a clear sign that his blood oxygen levels were dropping. Dr. Stenson decided that Pete needed to be put on a ventilator, which is a machine that pumps oxygen into a patient's lungs. The doctor carefully inserted a tube into Pete's mouth and carefully pushed it down his throat all the way to the bottom of his windpipe. Once the ventilator was powered up, Pete's condition immediately started to stabilize as oxygen flowed directly into his lungs.

With that crisis averted, Dr. Stenson picked up a file folder and started reviewing Pete's medical history. As he flipped through the pages, Dr. Stenson couldn't see any underlying health issues that would make Pete this sick. Pete had always been a bit on the heavy side, but by and large, he was a healthy guy. There were no pre-existing conditions or red flags that the doctor could connect to Pete's current condition, but Dr. Stenson was determined to keep looking.

30 minutes later, the doctor was scanning x-rays of Pete's chest. His lungs looked like solid white blobs. This meant that they were full of fluid instead of air, which explained why Pete's oxygen levels were so low when he arrived.

Dr. Stenson feared that the fluid meant Pete had a disease called spinal meningitis, which is a bacterial infection that spreads extremely fast along the spinal cord to the brain. It could kill Pete in less than 24 hours if it wasn't treated right away. Dr. Stenson rushed back to Pete's bedside. He was still unconscious, so the doctor and his team carefully rolled him onto his side.

They pulled up the back of Pete's shirt and the doctor slowly inserted a long syringe needle deep into Pete's lower back all the way into his spinal cord. This procedure was called a spinal tap and it enabled the doctor to extract fluid from Pete's spine so that it could be tested for meningitis or other conditions.

If the fluid came out of Pete looking clear, that meant Pete did not have spinal meningitis. But if the fluid looked yellow and cloudy like lemonade, it was a sure sign Pete did have it. Dr. Stenson held his breath as he extracted the spinal fluid into the syringe. And when he looked at it, it was totally clear and had no color. The doctor let out a sigh of relief.

Pete did not have spinal meningitis. But there was no time to relax. Pete was still in critical condition, and Dr. Stenson had to keep searching for answers. It wasn't until the afternoon, eight hours after Pete's arrival, that a clue started to emerge. While Dr. Stenson reviewed the results of a blood test, he saw that Pete's white blood cell count was much lower than it should have been.

The results surprised Dr. Stenson. Normally, white blood cell counts were elevated when someone was fighting an infection. But in rare cases, certain infections could also decrease someone's white blood cell count. That was helpful information, but Dr. Stenson still had no clue as to what was causing this infection.

As the hours passed later into the evening, Dr. Stenson felt stumped and totally exhausted. He couldn't help but wonder if his hospital just was not equipped to deal with a case like Pete's. It had been over 24 hours since Dr. Stenson had last slept. But even though Pete was stable for now, Dr. Stenson didn't want to go home. So a little after midnight, he kicked off his shoes, laid down on the couch in his office, and tried to get some rest.

He hoped that once he got a little sleep, Pete's condition would start to make more sense to him. But when the doctor woke up early the next morning, things only got stranger. While grabbing a cup of coffee in the break room, Dr. Stenson learned from one of the nurses that another patient had just arrived in the emergency room. His name was Tom Parkin, and he also lived in Fairfield Glade, the retirement community where Pete was from.

Tom was so sick that he could barely walk, and his symptoms were identical to Pete's. Tom's white blood cell count was low, and there was fluid building in his lungs. What's more, just like Pete, Tom's medical record showed that he was healthy with no pre-existing conditions that could explain this new illness. Over the coming days, Dr. Stenson ordered additional blood tests on both patients, combing through the results as he tried to figure out what was infecting both of them.

But then on Saturday, June 26th, six days after Pete arrived at the hospital, the crisis escalated again. Two more men from Fairfield Glade arrived at the emergency room, and they too had the same symptoms as Pete and Tom. One of the new patients was in critical condition. The hospital staff did their best to stabilize him, but just a few hours after arriving, he slipped into a coma.

Now, Dr. Stenson and his team had a new understanding of how quickly this mystery illness could escalate. But even though this emergency was growing, the doctor started to feel a glimmer of hope. Earlier that morning, he had received the results from a blood test he ordered the day before, and it revealed what the patient's white blood cells had been fighting. It was a bacterial infection called ehrlichiosis that coursed through the bloodstreams of its victims and wreaked havoc on their immune systems.

On one hand, this was good information to have, but on the other hand, it created more questions for Dr. Stenson. Ehrlichiosis was extremely rare. The first known case of it had been reported just six years earlier, and only around 60 cases had been reported in the entire United States during the previous year.

But here, in this tiny retirement community of just 3,000 people, four cases had emerged in less than a week. To Dr. Stenson, what was happening in Fairfield Glade seemed statistically impossible. Thankfully, Dr. Stenson learned that the disease could be treated with an antibiotic called tetracycline. He administered it to all four of the early chiosis patients, and it didn't take long for them all to get better.

But Fairfield Glade was still in significant danger. Ehrlichiosis was extremely dangerous and progressed at a rapid pace. Dr. Stenson knew that if he couldn't figure out what had caused this outbreak and stop it from spreading, that people were surely going to die.

So, he made a call to Atlanta, to the headquarters of the Center for Disease Control, and requested their assistance. The CDC agreed with Dr. Stenson's assessment and quickly put together a team led by one of the nation's greatest experts on ehrlichiosis, Dr. Reed Gerhardt. Over the next few weeks, Dr. Gerhardt and his team made 10 trips to Fairfield Glade.

They studied the area and interviewed residents, they collected samples and ran extensive tests across the community both indoors and outdoors, and sure enough they found the bacteria that causes ehrlichiosis was present in the environment but only in highly remote areas. Dr. Gerhart still didn't know why so many people were coming in contact with this bacteria or how to stop it.

As Dr. Gerhart and his team were working through the data, the epidemic was spreading. By the end of the summer, two months after Pete Roberts was hospitalized, seven more ehrlichiosis cases had been diagnosed in Fairfield Glade. And so now Dr. Stenson was treating 11 different people for this illness, and he couldn't help but notice that they were all connected by another quality. All of them, except for one, were men. The ehrlichiosis crisis continued to intensify.

Dr. Gerhardt and his team were unable to find a clear answer in the data they had collected over the previous weeks. So the doctor decided to review older research. He dug through every medical journal he could find, looking for possibilities, but found nothing. And then one day, he happened across a battered, yellowed copy of the New York State Journal of Medicine from 1947.

It was nearly half a century old, but as he scanned through one of the articles, he stumbled onto something that was very interesting. Moments later, he was on the phone talking to Pete Roberts, the very first resident of Fairfield Glade, to get hit with this disease. Dr. Gerhart had just one question, and it was not about any of Pete's symptoms. It was about Pete's golf game.

What Dr. Gerhart learned in that phone conversation finally cracked the case wide open. Because Dr. Gerhart was not just an expert on ehrlichiosis, he was also an expert on bugs. And Dr. Gerhart knew that ehrlichiosis was spread by one bug in particular. When he'd first arrived at Fairfield Glade, Dr. Gerhart had set to work figuring out where that bug was hiding.

The community was bordered on one side by an 80,000-acre nature preserve with miles of walking paths. The preserve featured dense woods that were full of deer, raccoons, bears, and bugs, including the bug that he knew was the culprit. Before that phone call with Pete, Dr. Gerhart hadn't understood how that bug could be causing this outbreak.

For people to get bitten by this bug, they would need to trek off the well-groomed trails and into the bushes and grass where the bug was hiding. From what he was observing, the senior residents of Fairfield Glade were not doing that.

But then, as the summer wore on, Dr. Gerhardt discovered yet another connection between all the ehrlichiosis patients. Almost all of them were golfers. And after his phone call with Pete Roberts, he finally understood these golfers were bonded by yet another critical factor. One that explained everything. When they teed off, these golfers had a very hard time centering the club as they swung it down to drive the ball down the fairway.

Instead of soaring the ball in the direction of the hole, the ball would shoot diagonally off of their clubs and bounce off into the rough, which is the tall grass that surrounds the main part of the course. In warmer months, these golfers would often be wearing shorts. So when they marched into that tall grass to find their errant ball, their bare legs were easy prey for this bug that was lurking there, a bug called the Lone Star Tick.

This tick got its name because the adult ticks have a tiny white spot on their backs that's sort of shaped like a star. These ticks were very small, only 1 to 3 millimeters wide. They were so tiny, in fact, that the golfers felt nothing when the bugs bit down on their legs and started drinking their blood. But then it was too late. The ehrlichiosis bacteria the ticks were carrying entered the golfers' bloodstreams and started waging war on their immune systems.

The 1947 journal article that Dr. Gerhardt found was written almost 40 years before the first known case of ehrlichiosis, but the article was relevant to the doctor because it talked about how other tick-borne illnesses were spread. What caught the doctor's attention was that the article concluded that tick-borne disease was a risk for golfers, but it was a much greater risk for bad golfers because they often would have to trek off into the rough.

This was what the patients at the Cumberland Medical Center all had in common: their golf scores were terrible, and all of them were spending way too much time out in the rough with the Lone Star Tick. All 11 of Dr. Stenson's patients who were stricken with ehrlichiosis eventually recovered from their symptoms. With the cause of the infection now identified, Dr. Gerhart set out to reduce the spread of the disease at Fairfield Glade.

The number one prey of the ticks were the deer that resided in the surrounding nature preserve. So Dr. Gerhart and his team developed a method of lacing corn with ivermectin, which is a drug that kills parasites. The deer that ate this corn were totally unaffected by the drug, but the ticks that drank the blood of those deer were all killed. Within months, the tick population in Fairfield Glade plummeted by 85%.

Still, to this day, golfers at Fairfield Glade know to put on a healthy layer of bug spray before hitting the links, especially those with a weak game. Mr. Ballin' Collection is sponsored by BetterHelp.

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On a summer afternoon in 2014, a 78-year-old man named Leo hobbled up the steps to his apartment in the city of Tours, which is in central France. It was a humid day and Leo was eager to get inside and take a nap. But the moment he opened his front door, something just felt wrong. Leo couldn't quite describe it. Everything in his apartment was exactly as he left it, but there was almost a presence in the place, like he wasn't alone. He called out asking who was there, but nobody answered.

He did have an adult daughter named Colette who lived nearby and she did have a key, but he knew she would not come over without calling first. As quietly as possible, Leo picked up the cane that he left in an umbrella stand by the door. He raised it over his shoulders, ready to strike anyone who might lunge at him. And just the thought of doing that made his heart start to race. He was an old man. He could barely keep the cane from wobbling as he held it in the air. And so he wasn't sure how well he'd do defending himself against an intruder.

Leo quietly reached down and put his hand on the entryway closet and quickly swung it open. But the closet looked undisturbed. Leo closed the door, then scanned the living room and kitchen, but they were empty too. And then when he went into his bedroom, it was still dark and totally untouched, and there was no one hiding behind the doors or under his bed. He told himself that he had to be alone, but somewhere in the back of his mind, he just didn't feel right. He just couldn't shake this feeling that there was somebody else in this apartment.

Leo set his cane back into the umbrella stand and then he headed to the bathroom to wash up, hoping that maybe some cold water on his face would get him to stop feeling so on edge. Leo opened the door, he flicked on the light, and then immediately he cried out in alarm because there, just a few feet away from him in the bathroom, was a grown man with cold eyes and a brooding look on his face.

Leo stumbled backwards into the hallway with his back flat against the wall, and while he was there, he just stared at the stranger. He was old, with a weather-worn face and gnarled hands. His back was slightly curved, but Leo could tell from the man's wide shoulders that he still had a lot of strength left in him. "Who are you?" Leo stammered, but the stranger didn't say. Instead, he only promised not to hurt Leo.

Leo could hear the sound of his own heart thumping in his ears. He knew there was a phone on the counter in the kitchen just a few feet away, and so he had to reach it. Slowly, Leo inched towards the phone, never taking his eyes off the strange man in the bathroom. But the stranger suddenly barked at Leo to stop, and Leo froze against the wall, his eyes still fixed on the stranger.

The stranger begged Leo not to call the police, and at that moment, Leo saw a shift in the old man's eyes, from sort of cold to now pleading. And Leo started to get the feeling that whoever this guy was, he really didn't mean any harm. Maybe he just got lost and was confused about how he got here or where he was supposed to be.

So, Leo decided he would not call the police. He tried to coax the stranger out of the bathroom by inviting him into the living room, but Leo could immediately see a spike of panic in the old man's eyes. He kept saying, "No, no, I'm fine right here, I'm fine right here." So, Leo told him, "Okay, that's fine, don't worry about it." You know, Leo just wanted to keep the stranger calm while he figured out what was even going on here.

And so with his eyes on the stranger, Leo slowly continued backing his way down the hallway with his back to the wall and as he did, he felt around with his lead hand until his hands found one of the lightweight wooden chairs in the kitchen. He grabbed it, again his eyes still fixed on the stranger, and then he dragged the chair back down the hallway until it was in front of the bathroom, and then he put the chair right down in front of the door, and then he looked at the stranger who was in the bathroom, then he told him to take a seat on the closed toilet lid.

And to Leo's relief, right as Leo sat down, the stranger did too. And so suddenly, the whole situation felt much more diffused. Leo then asked the stranger a few questions, like how long he'd lived in tours and whether he had a career when he was younger.

And to Leo's surprise, the man opened up, telling Leo all about his childhood and his love of cooking. Leo told the man that he too liked to cook, and right away the stranger's eyes lit up. He launched into an explanation of all of his favorite recipes, telling Leo about his special tricks to get each one just right. Leo had to admit that he actually found talking to this old man very pleasant. For a moment, he almost forgot that this man had broken into his apartment.

Then, a loud car horn sounded outside the window, snapping Leo to his senses. He realized the afternoon was growing late and he really needed to get this stranger out of the apartment and back to wherever he belonged. He asked the stranger if anybody was expecting him for dinner that night. But for the first time, the stranger just didn't respond. His eyes filled with sorrow. Finally, he admitted to Leo that no, he and his wife had long since divorced and nobody expected him for dinner these days.

Leo frowned. He knew how the man felt. His own daughter was grown up and out of the house. It got lonely cooking for one so often.

Leo sighed and, against his better judgment, he actually asked the stranger if he'd like to stay for dinner. And right away, the stranger's face brightened and he said, yes, I'd love to, and he thanked Leo repeatedly. And then Leo asked if he'd like to help make dinner since he loved cooking so much. But the stranger became agitated and repeated that, you know, I really feel more comfortable in the bathroom, so I'm going to stay here.

Leo said, "Okay, yeah, no big deal, that's fine, you can stay here." But secretly, Leo felt very unsettled by this. Why didn't he want to leave the bathroom? It didn't make any sense. You know, is this guy really okay? Is he mentally unwell? Like, what's going on here?

And it was at this point that the reality of the situation that Leo was in really came back to him. I mean, there is a stranger who broke into your house who will not leave the bathroom. And Leo had no idea what the stranger was even capable of. And he's just now invited him to dinner.

But without much else to do, Leo simply said, okay, I'm going to go make dinner now, and he left the hallway and headed to the kitchen, and he busied himself making a brie and tomato tart, but the whole time he never allowed himself to fully turn his back to the bathroom. He wanted to make sure at all times he at least had some line of sight on where the stranger was.

But the whole time Leo was in the kitchen staring at the bathroom, the stranger never left the bathroom. He couldn't even see the stranger anymore. And then anytime Leo walked over to the bathroom and peeked his head in, he would see the stranger just standing there next to the sink not doing anything.

40 minutes later, Leo served dinner in the bathroom because the stranger, again, would not leave the bathroom. As for the stranger, when he received the food, he acted like this was totally normal. And if Leo was being honest with himself, he was kind of glad to have this guy here. He liked having the company, even if the company was pretty odd.

And so the two men chatted and had their meal together and then after they were done, Leo was pretty tired and ready for bed and so as gently as he could, he told the stranger that it was now time for him to leave. But the stranger refused and said, "Nope, I feel good in the bathroom. I'm gonna stay here." Now Leo was starting to get frustrated and he said, "No, really, you have to leave right now." But again, the stranger, just as calm as can be, said, "Nope, I'm gonna stay here."

Finally, Leo just got mad and practically yelled at this guy to get out of the house now. But the stranger grabbed onto the sink, adamant that he would not go, and he told Leo, this is my home. I'm staying here.

Leo was totally outraged. He had been nothing but kind to this man, and now his patience was totally gone. But when he shouted yet again at this man to get out, the stranger's eyes suddenly went cold. That brooding face returned, and he became aggressive.

The stranger shouted that this was his apartment and he was not going anywhere and he began to pace back and forth beside the tub, warning Leo to leave him alone or else. It was at this point that Leo realized he could not solve this by himself, but he still felt bad about calling the police. He was convinced this stranger was just confused. Leo didn't think he deserved to be arrested. So, Leo just started slowly backing away down the hallway away from the bathroom

keeping his eyes fixed on the bathroom in case this guy came running out. And then eventually Leo reached the kitchen where he was able to reach his phone and he grabbed the receiver and dialed the number for his daughter Colette. And then when she picked up, he told her everything that was going on and she told him she would be there as fast as she could.

A few minutes later, Colette was parked outside of her father's apartment. She bounded up the stairs and flung open the front door, and her eyes landed on her father, Leo, who was pacing in the living room looking totally upset, and Leo would say that the elderly stranger was in the bathroom. But when Colette checked, the bathroom was empty. Colette moved quickly from room to room looking for this stranger, but there was no sign of him. She figured he must have fled her father's apartment in the short time it took for her to drive over here.

So Colette rejoined her dad in the living room and tried to calm him down, telling him that, you know, the stranger must have left and they'd just change the locks in the morning and everything would be fine. But Leo still seemed really upset and he just kept pacing around in the living room. To Colette, it seemed like her dad wasn't even listening to her.

She put her hands on his shoulders and forced him to stand still, and slowly his eyes did focus on her and his shoulders relaxed. But while Leo did seem to now be more calm, when he began to speak again, Colette became very worried. Because her father was talking about the stranger and how upsetting it was that they were here, however, what he was really upset about was actually the stranger's manners, not the fact that the stranger had broken into his apartment.

Leo kept saying, you know, how rude it was for someone not to leave when they were asked to leave. And Colette kept telling her dad, like, that doesn't really matter. He's gone now and that's the most important thing. Remember, he broke into your house. This is someone who probably is not very polite. But Leo, he just could not let go of how rude this stranger was.

And so slowly, as Colette listened to her dad rant about these strangers' poor manners, something about the story just started to feel wrong. Like the way her dad was talking about it just didn't seem like a normal reaction to what had just happened. And so acting on impulse, she grabbed her dad's jacket and ushered her dad to the door and told him they were going to the hospital to make sure he was okay. A few hours later, Colette sat down next to her father's bed inside of the emergency room.

It was after midnight and the doctors had run a full course of tests including blood work and an MRI. They also had given Leo cognitive and memory tests and now Colette and Leo were anxiously waiting for the results. Finally, a physician parted the curtains by the bed and walked into the room and he told Leo that physically he was basically fine. All of his tests were normal except for a small damaged area near the base of his brain where a little pocket of connective tissue was missing.

The doctor told them that it could be a sign that Leo had early-stage Alzheimer's disease, which causes the loss of memory and cognitive function. Colette felt the blood drain from her face. Alzheimer's is a fatal disease, and she wasn't ready to lose her father to it. But the doctor assured her that it was still too early to know for sure if he had it, and even if he did, the doctor said treatment options now were better than ever.

Just in case, the doctor said he was prescribing Leo two anti-anxiety medications that are frequently used to treat the symptoms of Alzheimer's. And the doctor said he would keep Leo in the hospital overnight just to make sure he was okay. Moments later, a nurse entered the room with a small water bottle and a little plastic cup with two white pills inside of it. After Leo swallowed both pills, it didn't take long for him to relax.

Leo promised Colette that he'd be totally fine at the hospital by himself and she should just come back in the morning. So Colette thanked him and kissed him on the cheek and then she headed home to get some sleep as well. The following morning, Colette headed back to the hospital and Leo had just been discharged and so she was able to collect him and get him out to her car and then she drove him back to his apartment.

and when they got to the door and they opened it up, Leo very cautiously stepped inside and for a second he tried to see if he had that same feeling he got the day before when he felt like there was somebody in the apartment and sure enough there was. But as Leo stood there right now, he didn't get that feeling. The apartment felt empty. But Leo still felt like he just had to check the bathroom. And so with Colette right behind him, Leo slowly made his way to the bathroom, he opened up the door, he looked inside,

and he sighed with relief. The stranger was gone. A few days later, when Colette and Leo returned to the hospital for a follow-up visit, when they went into the exam room, the doctor came in and told Leo that he had some news. They had discovered something that explained why that stranger was in Leo's house.

The doctor told Leo that he was suffering from a neurological condition called Kegra's syndrome, which prevents people from recognizing familiar faces. Leo thought a stranger was in his bathroom when in reality it was actually someone he knew very well.

The doctor admitted that he had never seen a case like Leo's where he could recognize all the people around him except for this one particular person. The doctor said that maybe the combination of Kegraus syndrome and early stage Alzheimer's contributed to Leo becoming so confused about who was in his apartment the night he came to the hospital. But before the doctor could even finish, Leo said he did now recognize the stranger for who he was all along. Leo's own face in the bathroom mirror.

From Ballin Studios and Wondery, this is Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries, hosted by me, Mr. Ballin. 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 be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Thank you.

Script editing is by Scott Allen and Evan Allen. Our coordinating producer is Matub Zare. Executive producers are myself, Mr. Ballin, and Nick Witters. For Wondery, our head of sound is Marcelino Villapando. Senior producers are Laura Donna Palavoda and Dave Schilling. Senior managing producer is Ryan Lohr. Our executive producers are Aaron O'Flaherty and Marshall Louis for Wondery. Was there a crime committed?

As far as I'm concerned, there wasn't. Guilty by Design dives into the wild story of Alexander and Frank, interior designers who in the 80s landed the jackpot of all clients. We went to bed one night and the next morning we woke up as one of the most wanted people in the United States. What are they guilty of? You can listen to Guilty by Design exclusively and ad-free on Wondery+. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.