The first thing Roban Lampkin noticed was the bubbles. Small, compact constellations in her urine, on the surface of the toilet water.
“I’d never seen that in my life,” she told Insider. “Bubbles that stayed on the rim.”
Her doctor initially suggested it might be some kind of protein in her pee, which can be a warning sign for kidney damage, but the doctor didn’t think too much of it.
As years passed, Lampkin started developing a wide array of health issues, some of which were hard to dismiss.
Bruises. Red spots. Swollen ankles. A repulsion to alcohol. And fatigue — near constant fatigue.
At one point in the fall of 2019, her tongue and the insides of …