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It was one of those weeks- I couldn't figure out what was wrong with anybody, it seemed! In one shift, I had four different patients with abdominal pain and none of them had any objective signs of disease. Normal blood tests, CT scans, urinalysis. Even their exams and stories were inconsistent. One of the things I like most about medicine is the search for the right answer. The clues are often hidden, poorly expressed or both. I get such a sense of satisfaction when I figure something out. But not figuring it out is so annoying. One young man had right lower quadrant pain, which made me suspicious for appendicitis. His pain had been there for four days. He had told the triage nurse that his pain was in his left upper quadrant, diagonal from where he told me it was. I treated his pain and ordered some tests. They were all normal and his pain kept coming back. I sent him home. I still don't know what was wrong with him. A teenaged girl came in with right sided chest pain that brought her to tears. Her mother insisted that her right neck was swollen. Her exam was essentially normal. She had no risk factors for a pulmonary embolus (blood clot in the lungs), but I did a CT scan of her neck and chest to make sure. Needless to say, they were negative. When I went back to tell her, the pain had completely resolved and her breathing was unlabored. What was it? I have no idea.