University of Colorado Denver | Anschutz Medical Campus

From the time Eli Gold was 6 months old, his mother and father, Jacob Gump, PhD, knew that something was not quite right with their first-born child. He had unexplained vomiting and lethargy; his vision was not good; he was missing developmental milestones. His parents had taken Eli to numerous specialists but still had no definitive diagnosis. 

When he was 28 months old, on a holiday vacation to visit family on the East Coast, Eli became seriously ill. He couldn’t keep any food down; he became dehydrated.

For the first time ever, his parents heard him make one specific complaint. "He said, 'Daddy, my head hurts,'" Gump said. "Only later did we realize that he had always had a headache."