Someone my husband and I know is having open heart surgery next week. He was scheduled to have the procedure tomorrow but something came up in the hospital staff to put it off. This fellow is relatively young and vigorously healthy, running ultra-marathons as most of us would walk to the library. The cautionary part of the story is that he was done in by an infection.
Slightly more than a decade ago, a very dear friend of mine who had just turned 30, died in the middle of a swim workout. He had been working on the computer side of the Salt Lake City Olympics and the opening ceremony was about six weeks away so he had been working very long hours. He had a family history of heart problems so to assuage his mother's fears he had undergone a stress test ten days before he died, coming through with flying colors. But he had caught a cold so had missed a couple of swim practices. This guy was not just a weekend warrior swimmer. He had won the 200 butterfly that year at the Masters Short Course Championships, approximately six months before his death.
When my friend came to the pool he jumped in the water and started to warm up. He had gone about 400 yards when he suddenly sank to the bottom. The lifeguards on staff and the doctors who were a big part of the group in the pool got him out quickly and began chest compression and mouth to mouth. My friend died at the side of the pool at the age of 30. The autopsy showed that his cold had caused problems with his heart leading to valves that didn't work.
When our other friend began to experience issues while exercising and went to the doctor, everyone initially dismissed the idea of heart problems because this fellow was so fit. I reminded my husband of my swimming friend and also reminded him that this guy had experienced a long term tooth infection undiagnosed by a dentist and had just had a very bad cold. So our friend told his doctors his history, not one that would have fallen into the normal questions, and they changed their protocol for his diagnosis. They found that he had a genetic abnormality in his heart muscle that had been exacerbated by his long term infections, both tooth and cold. His case wasn't as bad as my swimming friend because his heart was still a fairly normal size not grossly enlarged.
No one thinks that a cold or a tooth infection can kill. I still remember the day my friend died.
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