INDIANAPOLIS – Sean Keefer’s star was on the rise as a tennis player at Hillsdale College in 1997 when a burning sensation in his eyes and headaches sent him to a physician. He was diagnosed with pink eye, but the medication he was given only made his eyes worse.
A variety of other maladies plagued Keefer after he completed his education and began his professional career. In April 2007, Keefer – now married, a father and working as deputy commissioner for the Indiana Department of Labor – underwent a series of tests that ruled out an earlier diagnosis.
Unsure of what to do, his family physician referred him to Michael Stack, M.D., a rheumatologist affiliated with St. Francis Hospital & Health Centers. The physician asked Keefer a series of questions that accurately described the multitude of symptoms he had been suffering over the years.
A series of laboratory and imaging tests at St. Francis Hospital-Indianapolis finally pinpointed the source of Keefer’s illness, a rare arthritic condition, and successfully map out a therapy that ended his 10-year medical odyssey.
Keefer’s story is the subject of an upcoming segment of Mystery Diagnosis. It will air 10 p.m. (ET/PT) on Monday, March 10 on Discovery Health. Please check local listings.
Both Keefer and Stack are featured in interviews in the program. Also, several St. Francis emergency room nurses and technicians from Radiology and the St. Francis Heart Center are included in re-enactments.
Mystery Diagnosis, which debuted in 2005, features episodes detailing real-life health struggles of people and the physicians and other medical professionals who seek to diagnose and treat their illnesses. For more information about the show and episode guides, go to http://health.discovery.com/fansites/mystery-diagnosis/mystery-diagnosis.html.
St. Francis has hospitals on Indianapolis’ south side, Beech Grove and Mooresville. St. Francis is part of a network of 13 hospital campuses in Indiana and Illinois owned and operated by the Sisters of St. Francis Health Services, Inc., one of the largest health-care systems in Indiana.
