Here is what I recall: He woke up one day with no voice, but a “ribbon of pain” running lengthwise on the roof of his mouth. He went to all the best voice specialists and recovered his voice, but could not get rid of the pain.

At his wife’s behest, he stopped relying on his staff and sat down at a computer himself to start searching online. He stumbled upon a support group for people suffering from a horrible-sounding neuro issue (trigeminal neuralgia?) that was worse than what he had but presented in similar ways. Through that group he found a doctor in Pittsburgh who looked in his mouth and identified the telltale line & “stoplights” as shingles. It was the answer he had been searching for in all the best research hospitals — found only when he placed himself at the center of the search and connected with fellow e-patients.

I couldn’t find a definitive article about this, but I did find an announcement of a $10,000 donation to the Chronic Pain Outreach Center and a Washingtonian article that references the episode.