Hey, Prime members. You can binge episodes 9-16 of Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries right now and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. In the summer of 1999, a 33-year-old woman tossed and turned in her bed for hours. Even though she was physically exhausted, her mind was racing a mile a minute. For over a year, she'd been suffering from intense body aches, constant fatigue, and an unbearable itching sensation under her skin. It was like she was constantly battling a severe flu. She'd gone to countless doctors, but none of them thought there was anything actually wrong with her. And some thought what she really needed was actually a therapist. And no matter how much she tried to stand up for herself, nobody would take her seriously, not even her own husband. It had all become too much to handle. And so tonight, this woman was going to do something about it, something drastic. From Ballin Studios and Wundry, 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 like today's story, please call the Follow Buttons Electric Company and cancel their service.

This episode is called Dark Killer. In the summer of 1998, 32-year-old Catherine Gordon sat curled up on the couch with a book and outside of her home in Atlanta, Georgia. Across the living room, her husband lifted their newborn baby, Jade, out of the bassinet and carried her toward Catherine to breastfeed. It should have been a sweet moment. Catherine thought about how amazing it was that she actually had a baby. It wasn't that long ago that she was a self-described party girl who thought more about the next bikini contest she could enter than about having a child of her own. But now the former model, who once moonlighted as a bartender, was a stay-at-home mother with a husband in law school. They were now the model of respectability, and their little baby, Jade, completed their perfect little family. But Katherine didn't think being a mom would hurt so much. Every time Jade latched onto her breast for milk, Katherine felt a burning sensation tear through her chest. It hurt so much she could feel tears welling up in her eyes. Her husband, John, had tried to reassure her that a lot of new moms experienced difficulties with breastfeeding, and Katherine wanted to believe him.

Maybe she was still learning how to do it right. Katherine cupped her hand around the soft, warm fuzz of Jade's head and guided her from John's hands to her breast. The baby tilted her face up to stare at her mother as she began to nurse. Katherine started to smile at Jade's big, round eyes, but then she noticed her baby's lips. They were bright red, covered in blood. A bolt of fear shot through Catherine, and she pulled Jade off her breast to get a closer look. It didn't look like the blood was coming from Jade's mouth. Instead, it seemed to be coming from Katherine's milk ducks. She was relieved the baby was okay, but what in the world was going on with her? She called for John and jumped up from the couch to hand him their baby. Then she called her doctor and said she needed an appointment right away. The nurse said she could squeeze her in the next day. By the next morning, Catherine was exhausted. She'd barely slept the night before between waking up for the baby and also worrying about what was happening with her breasts. If it wasn't for the pain in her chest, she might have fallen asleep right there.

But her doctor, the same OB-GYN who had delivered Jade a month earlier, could not have been kinder. She asked Catherine questions about her pain and carefully examined her breast to pinpoint where the pain was coming from. She also had Catherine produce some milk for analysis in the lab. Then she smiled and explained that Catherine had mastitis, a bacterial infection that targets breast tissue causing it to swell. The swelling put pressure on Catherine's milk ducts, which led to the pain Catherine felt when she fed Jade. It also led to the bleeding. Mastitis is a very common illness that affects many new mothers, and it's easy to fix with antibiotics. The doctor promised that once Catherine finished taking the medication for 10 days, she'd be back to normal. Katherine exhaled in relief, but something was still bothering her that she needed to share. She told the doctor that 10 years ago, she had gotten breast implants while she was working as a swimwear model in Virginia Beach, Virginia. At the time, Katherine had been excited to get them. They gave her such a full figure that she won beauty contests all over the region. But now, Katherine wondered if the procedure could have caused any problems with breastfeeding her baby.

The doctor promised Katherine the infection had nothing to do with the implants. This seemed like a totally ordinary case of mastitis, and she was sure Catherine would feel better after taking the antibiotics. Catherine thanked the doctor and headed home to tell John, hopeful that she would soon feel better. Three days after Catherine finished her course of antibiotics for her mastitis, she and John sat down to a big meal that she'd prepared. Catherine was feeling great and had put Jade down to sleep with no problems earlier in the evening. The antibiotics had taken away all the pain from breastfeeding, and she'd even felt good enough to go to the gym earlier in the week. It was rare these days that Catherine and John got to spend time alone. Now, John was very eager to tell his wife about his busy day. Besides attending law school, John also managed a chain of restaurants and bars, so he was juggling a lot. He had always been a type A personality, never satisfied unless he had a new challenge. Catherine had worked hard too, both as a model and then also a sales rep. But now she was content to look after their home and be with the baby.

She sometimes thought that there was something a little invisible about being a stay at home mom, but she still cherished this time with Jade, even if she did sometimes feel like she was just her husband's cheerleader. A few minutes into dinner, Catherine began to feel extremely tired. She glanced at the clock on the wall. It was only eight o'clock, and normally she was still full of energy at this time. She tried her best to ignore the fatigue and concentrated as best as she could on what John was saying about his constitutional law class. She told herself that long days with Jade were exhausting, and probably she just needed more sleep. But when Catherine and John finished eating their meals and they stood up to clear the table, Catherine felt so lightheaded that she immediately sat back down before she fell. As she sat there collecting herself, Catherine realized that her muscles were beginning to ache, too. And so she hoped she wasn't now coming down with the flu right when she was finally cured of mastitis. John rushed over to her and asked her what was wrong. Catherine didn't want to alarm him, so she smiled and said she was just tired.

He squeezed her hand and told her he would clean up. She should just go to bed and get some rest. Katherine nodded and slowly got up and walked to the bedroom, hoping she'd feel back to normal in the morning. A month later, Katherine limped back in to the waiting room of her OB-GYN's office. She had tried for weeks to get better on her own, hoping that her healthy eating habits and drinking lots of fresh juice would speed up her recovery. But no matter what she did, it didn't help. She just kept getting worse. These days, her fatigue and aching muscles were making it so hard to get out of bed in the morning. And recently, her joints had started to feel hot and tender. Catherine now relied on a group of friends to help her care for the baby all day and make meals while John started handling more of the house cleaning and Jade's nightly feedings. Catherine felt so guilty. She knew that her mysterious symptoms were making John's life way harder and testing his patience. John was trying to be a good husband and help out around the house, but Catherine found it impossible to keep from criticizing him when he left a dirty dish in the sink or a paper out of place.

Catherine couldn't help that she was a perfectionist, and she knew it totally graded on him when she asked so much of him while saying that she was just too tired and achy to keep the house organized herself. Catherine knew something was wrong and it probably was not mastitis. She was hoping the doctor could help her figure out what was really wrong so she could start feeling like herself again. As Catherine sat on the examining table in her hospital gown, the doctor flipped through the pages of her medical chart and told her what she saw. Catherine's vital signs were normal. Her blood work was normal. She didn't have a major disease like cancer or heart disease, and she didn't have a minor one like mastitis either. In fact, as far as the doctor could see, there was nothing physically wrong with Catherine at all. Then she asked Catherine how she was feeling mentally and if everything was all right at home. Catherine admitted that things were a bit tense these days between her and John, and she explained that her fatigue was making it really hard to take care of her baby. The doctor's expression grew serious, and she sat down next to Catherine.

She suspected that her fatigue was due to postpartum depression, a condition that often afflicts new mothers and can be treated with counseling or antidepressants. Katherine was stunned. She did not feel depressed. If she was struggling emotionally, it was only because of her physical discomfort, not the other way around. She told the doctor that when she looked down at Jade and saw her baby smile, she knew that Jade was the best thing in her life. She just needed to get back in good physical shape so she could be the mother she always wanted to be. But the doctor made it clear that Catherine had it wrong. She was confident that the best way for Catherine to get better was to be treated not by her, not by the doctor's office, but by a therapist. Catherine always considered herself the person who speaks up for herself. If someone didn't take her seriously, it made her angry, and she often said so. But this time, as a tired new mom in a hospital gown that didn't quite cover her back, Catherine just fell silent. She thanked the doctor for her concern and then just got up and left.

The next day, Catherine was at home playing with Jade on a mat next to the couch. She was dressed in her workout clothes and waiting for a babysitter to arrive. Even though she still felt achy and exhausted basically all of the time, she was determined to get back to the gym. She felt good working out while she recovered from mastitis, so she hoped that some gentle exercise would help her get her body back under control. A few minutes later, the doorbell rang. Catherine let in the babysitter and kissed Jade goodbye. Then she slowly headed out to her car to drive to the gym. Once she got there, the familiar sounds of clattering gym equipment and people working out boosted Katherine's spirits. She felt a surge of energy just watching everyone else lift weights and pedal stationary bikes. Catherine took some deep breaths and carefully stepped onto a treadmill. She set the machine to a moderate walking pace and started out slowly, savoring the feeling of movement after weeks of basically being inactive. She told herself it was mind-over-matter, but after a few minutes, she felt a tingling sensation in her legs and a shooting pain running down her left arm.

Katherine kept walking and tried to ignore the pain, but it was no use. Her body was screaming at her to stop. So eventually, she pushed the stop button on the treadmill and headed to a bench. She sat down and began massaging her muscles, but that didn't help. Katherine shook her head in frustration. She had barely begun to work out. And now she was already in so much pain that she needed to grab her gym bag and head home. But when she stood up to leave, she felt yet another strange sensation, an intense itching. And it was coming from inside of her chest. Because Katherine could not literally itch the inside of her chest, she reflexively just began tapping on the middle of her chest with her hand. But the itching feeling didn't go away. And so Katherine tapped harder. And then finally, she made a fist and just started banging on her chest. But she still felt this unbearable, tingling sensation rising up under her skin. Other people now were staring at her as she pounded away madly at her chest. Finally, she dropped her fist in embarrassment when she realized everybody was staring at her.

And then as quick as she could, she grabbed her things and headed out of the gym, back to her car. Katherine felt helpless. Her whole body seemed to just be falling apart. She knew she needed more help. Maybe a different doctor would have a better diagnosis than her OB-GYN, who seemed convinced that it was all in Karen's head. As soon as Karen got back home, she made an appointment with her primary care doctor. A few days later, Catherine sat on yet another examination table, this one in her primary care doctor's office. She described her original fatigue and muscle aches and bleeding nipples, but she made it clear her condition was really getting worse and worse. Now she was suffering from weakness and tingling in her limbs and this weird constant itching inside of her chest. And Katherine was happy to see that her doctor was taking detailed notes as she spoke, and he had a focused, interested expression on his face. When she was finally done speaking, her doctor tapped his pen on his clipboard for a moment, and then he gave her a serious look. He told her he thought she had something called fibromyalgia, which is a disorder that causes pain and tenderness throughout the body and often results in fatigue.

Scientists don't fully understand what causes it, he admitted, and there are no real tests for it either. Doctors tend to diagnose patients with the condition when they can't find another explanation for widespread chronic body aches. And although Katherine's doctor didn't actually say this to her, it is the case that doctors will sometimes default to this vague diagnosis, fibromyalgia, when they basically think it could actually all be in the patient's head, just like Katherine's OB-GYN had suggested. Katherine's primary care doctor told Katherine that there's no cure for fibromyalgia. He said the best he could do was prescribe her a painkiller called oxycontin to help manage the symptoms. And so Katherine was relieved to finally hear that something was physically wrong with her, even though it was frightening to hear that there was no cure. But still, it didn't seem like all of her symptoms could be explained away by this fibromyalgia. And so Katherine asked if there were any more tests he could run or anything he could do at all to try to figure out any of the underlying reasons behind her pain. But the doctor shook his head and said no, and then stood up to end the appointment.

He said the oxycotton would help her feel better, and that was the best he could do. And so as Katherine left his office, she started to feel like, once again, a doctor was casually writing off her symptoms rather than seriously looking into the root cause. She didn't know if she believed the fibromyalgia diagnosis any more than the postpartum depression diagnosis. And she wasn't sure she wanted to start taking oxycontin, which can be very addictive. Because even if it did help mask her symptoms, she knew it wouldn't actually help cure the underlying reason behind them. She wanted a cure, not just a temporary fix. Still, Katherine was enough of a dutiful patient that she did go to the pharmacy and she picked up the four pill bottles that were waiting for her just in case. Two months later, Katherine laid on the couch completely exhausted. She had decided to follow her intuition and not take the oxycontin. But now her symptoms were getting so much worse. The aches were deeper in her muscles. The joint pain felt hotter and sharper. The numbness, tingling, and itching inside of her chest were nearly constant. On top of that, she was getting more tired than ever.

She had just put Jade to bed, and now she didn't even have the energy to make dinner. So John was heating up some leftover pizza for them to eat. Katherine eventually heard the beep of the microwave, and so she dragged herself out to the kitchen. She winced in pain as she sat at the table while John silently served them their food. Katherine could tell he was mad, but she didn't really know what to say. So she just sat there quietly while they ate, and then she got up to do the dishes. But Katherine was in so much pain that she had to grip the side of the counter for support. John watched her silently and just shook his head. Then he told her that she had been complaining of aches and weakness for months, but she refused to do anything about it. Two doctors had given her a diagnosis, but she had just rejected both and refused to follow their advice. Face. He was exhausted too, and at his wits end, trying to understand what was going on with his wife. In fact, he wasn't even sure there was anything actually wrong with her. Before she could say anything, John turned and walked out of the room.

Catherine stood at the counter for another minute and then stumbled to a kitchen chair and just sat there crying for what felt like hours. Finally, she stopped crying and dried her face off with a napkin and told herself that she couldn't give up yet. Maybe there was still an answer for her out there. And even if she didn't have her husband's support, she'd continue to look for answers alone. She had to keep trying for Jade. Hey, listeners, it's me, Mr. Ballin, the host of Mr. Ballin's Medical mysteries. Thank you so much for tuning in to my brand new podcast. If you liked what you heard and want more content like it, be sure to listen to my other podcast called the Mr. Ballin Podcast: Strange, Dark, and mysterious stories. Each week on that show, we dive into, you guessed it, strange, dark, and mysterious stories, and they are all true, and they are all terrifying. Take, for example, one of my favorite episodes, episode 120 called Small Town Secrets. When firefighters were attempting to extinguish a raging inferno in a quiet neighborhood, the floor below them suddenly buckled and collapsed. Thankfully, they were unhurt, falling only four feet into a crawl space.

However, the horror these firefighters discovered in that crawl space left all of them traumatized for life. But you'll have to listen to the very end to hear what certain people in this town were hiding. Listen to the Amazon exclusive, Mr. Ballin podcast, strange, dark, and mysterious stories in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. A few months later, in the spring of 1999, Katherine finally got an appointment with a rheumatologist who was an expert both on fibromyalgia and arthritis. Since that fight with John in the kitchen, Katherine had gone out and seen various other doctors, but none of them had been able to help. But now, as she waited in this latest exam room, she felt hopeful that this specialist could solve her case once and for all. After a short wait, the doctor came in. He was an older man, and although he seemed like he knew what he was doing, she didn't like the way he called Catherine Honey. She decided she would forgive his sexism if he could offer her something besides addictive painkillers as a solution. And he did. The doctor began scalding Catherine for not listening to what doctors had already told her.

The problem is in your head. He had reviewed her charts, and as far as he was concerned, she didn't have a disease. And until she could accept that and get herself together, her personal life would continue to suffer. Partway through the doctor's lecture, Catherine just stopped listening like when she was getting scolded as a kid. She felt humiliated and desperate and mad. She knew there was something physically wrong with her. But she was now starting to feel her will to fight slipping away. And she knew the doctor was right about one thing. Her marriage was crumbling under the weight of her sickness. Catherine pushed herself up from her chair and silently left the office. She walked slowly to her car, having to stop periodically to lean against the wall to rest. When Catherine got home, she paid the babysitter and put Jade in the play pen in the living room. Then she lay down on the couch and watched as her little daughter crawled around the space. Jade was nearly one years old, and Catherine loved to see her blossom into a little toddler. But watching from the couch also made Catherine feel guilty and totally inadequate.

She wanted to play with her little girl and crawl around on the floor with her, but she just couldn't. Catherine told Jade how beautiful and special she was, but to her surprise, the words that came out of her mouth sounded funny, almost like she was drunk. She sat up straight and tried to speak normally, but again, the words that tumbled out were ragged and slow. And so Catherine thought to herself, Oh, my God, I can't even talk anymore. Katherine started to feel a rising sense of panic. If her symptoms got much worse, she wouldn't be able to care for her baby at all. As the sun faded, Catherine managed to feed Jade and get her to sleep. She promised herself that she would clean up the baby's mess in the living room, but first, she just needed to lay back down on the couch. An hour later, the front door opened and her husband, John, walked in. Catherine was still laying on the couch, tucked underneath the blanket, and she could immediately feel her husband's disapproval as he staring at her and then also at the messy room all around her. John dropped his bag and sat down next to Catherine.

He told her, Enough was enough. It was time to suck it up and get herself together. Catherine felt tears rolled down her face, but she didn't have the energy to respond. They'd had this conversation over and over again, and it always arrived at the same place with John not believing her. And she just did not have the energy to fight anymore. So she just laid there, letting tears stream down her face. John didn't say anything more either. After a minute, he just got up and left. As Katherine lay there alone, she felt something shift inside of her. She'd been fighting with her doctors, her husband, and her body for months. She realized that she'd gotten to the end of a rope. After 10 months of fighting, she felt hopeless, alone, and totally out of options. Katherine could not keep living like this. That night, Catherine dragged herself into the bathroom and opened the medicine cabinet to get her toothbrush. Her four unopened bottles of oxy cotton were standing on the glass shelf. She realized the pills would be more than enough to end her life. Catherine closed the cabinet, hobbled over to the bed and crawled under the covers.

As she tossed and turned, she kept thinking about those bottles of oxycontin. She looked over at John, who was sound asleep. She didn't want to leave him and Jade alone, but she just couldn't bear the pain anymore. She was done. Tonight, she would sleep beside her husband for the last time. The next day, she'd make sure Jade was with someone, and while John was at law school, she would overdose on her pills. Catherine closed her eyes, satisfied that she finally had a plan. Then she fell into a deep sleep. But as she slept, Catherine had a strange dream. A jumble of images flickered through her mind like some broken film reel. She couldn't make sense of what they meant. And then she heard a voice. It was deep and powerful and cut through all the chaos of her dream. The voice told her that there was something poisonous growing inside of her that needed to come out. Catherine bolted upright, her heart pounding in her chest. The dream felt so real that suddenly she felt like she could taste poison in her mouth. Catherine suddenly knew that she had just gotten a message that could save her life.

The next day, Katherine sat in the waiting room of yet another doctor's office. This time, she was meeting with a surgeon named Susan Kolb. The voice in Catherine's dream had told her that whatever this poison was in her body, it needed to come out, like be surgical removed. And Catherine was almost positive she knew what it was. Now, she just needed to convince a surgeon to actually perform the surgery. Katherine described her symptoms to the surgeon for what felt like the millionth time. When she mentioned the shooting pain in her arm, Dr. Kolb stopped her. She said she'd seen those symptoms before and they weren't caused by postpartum depression or fibromyalgia. Dr. Kolb was pretty sure she knew what was making Katherine sick. It was exactly what the voice in Katherine's dream had said it was. But there was no way to know for sure without actually doing surgery. She needed to visually confirm her diagnosis, and no amount of imaging from MRI or CT scans would be enough. She would have to cut Katherine open in the hope that she was right, exposing her to all the risks of surgery, from bleeding, to infection, to organ damage.

Catherine felt a surge of fear and also hope. The prospect of undergoing serious surgery was terrifying, but far less so than the prospect of continuing to get weaker and sicker. So she took a deep breath and told Dr. Kolb to please schedule her for the soonest available time slot. Three days later, Catherine lay on an operating table at a local hospital. Dr. Kolb stood at her side and asked if she had any last questions or doubts before they began the procedure. Catherine confirmed that she didn't, and Dr. Kolb nodded to the anesthesiologist. They stepped forward and put some drugs into Katherine's IV. Dr. Kolb waited until Katherine was in a deep sleep before reaching for her scalpel. Then she made a quick incision in Katherine's skin, revealing the fatty tissue beneath. With precise and careful strokes, she continued to cut deeper and deeper. She kept going until her knife was underneath Katherine's pectorilis major muscle, the largest muscle in the chest. There, Dr. Kolb saw what she was looking for, the round implants from Katherine's breast augmentation surgery 11 years earlier. The implants were in the right position and they didn't appear to have any holes, which was a common problem with implants.

But these were not the issues Dr. Kolb was looking for. She reached down and loosened one of the implants and then pulled it out. And immediately, Dr. Kolb was shocked at what she saw. The problem was so obvious, the doctor knew right away she would not need to run any additional tests to confirm her diagnosis. The implant was supposed to be full of clear saline liquid that normally keeps it round and firm. But instead, the liquid inside of Catherine's implant was pitch black and full of tiny floating particles, dendritic gas. Dr. Kolb quickly switched to the other side of Catherine's chest and removed the second implant, and it, too, was also black and full of particles. Dr. Kolb told her astonished surgical team that she had found what was making Catherine sick. And the cause was as shocking as it was unlikely. It would turn out Catherine's breast implants were full of a black mold, the same fungus that grows in people's bathrooms. The contamination probably began about 10 months earlier, right after Catherine's breasts began bleeding as she was feeding Jade. She really did have mastitis then, but the antibiotics that her doctor had given her to treat it had caused a brand new problem.

The drugs had cleared up the mastitis, but they did their job almost too well. They also killed healthy bacteria inside of Catherine's body that helped protect against other infections. And so as a result, Catherine soon developed this fungal infection that sneaked into her breast implants through a loose valve or seal. From there, the fungus started breeding inside of the liquid saline of the implants and began releasing a steady stream of poisonous toxins back into Catherine's body that were making her very sick. If Catherine had ignored the warning signs from her body and her powerful dream, the implants could have easily eventually burst and killed her. But she listened to the voice in that dream, and it saved her life. Dr. Kolb put Katherine on a two-month course of a common antifungal medication called fluconazole. After it was completed, Catherine felt much better. It was a long road to recovery, but eventually, Katherine would feel totally normal. She and John were able to work through the relationship issues that manifested during her illness, and they would actually go on to write a book together about relationships. Two months after her were removed, Katherine became pregnant with her son, Cole.

She continues to live a healthy life with no long term effects from her fungal infection. The FDA now requires that breast implant manufacturers include prominent box warnings and updated recommendations designed to detect leaks in the implants. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to new episodes of Mr. Ballin' medical mysteries early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the app today. And also, Wundry Plus subscribers can listen to Mr. Ballin' medical mysteries ad-free. Join Wundry Plus today. Before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at listenersurvey. Com. From Ballin Studios and Wundry, this is Mr. Ballin' 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. This episode was written by Nora Batel, our editor is Heather Dundis. Sound design is by Matthew Culelli, coordinating producer is Sophia Martens. Our senior producer is Alex Benadon.

Our Associate producers and researchers are Sarah Vitak and Tasia Palaconda. Fact checking was done by Sheila Patterson. For Ballin Studios, our head of production is Zach Leavitt. Script editing is by Scott Allen and Evan Allen. Our coordinating producer is Matub Zair. Executive producers are myself, Mr. Ballin, and nick Wittars. For Wundry, our head of sound is Marcelino Villapondo. Senior producers are Laura Donna Palavoda and Dave Schilling. Senior managing producer is Ryan Loar. Our executive producers are Aaron O'Flaherty and Marshall Louis for Wundry.