PGA Tour’s Doug Milne cheats death after run exposes bacterial heart infection
This week’s column is by guest writer Doug Milne JR, Senior Manager, Communications PGA Tour who has contributed to this space on several occasions. Milne shares his story about the day he went for the run that would ultimately save his life.
Sunday, June 11, 2017. I knew something was wrong. From start to finish, I struggled through a 7-mile run which, until that day, had been a nobrainer. I walked the last mile home, unable to catch a deep breath.
Later that night, I came down with a fever of 103. “Ah, a cold,” I thought. “That explains my sluggish run.” I was wrong, though I wouldn’t know it for another five weeks.
My fever and aches and pains lasted for nearly two weeks. The nights were filled with sleepless tosses and turns over sweat-soaked sheets - buckets of sweat.
On the way to the airport July 10, I mentioned to my dad the severe night sweats and inability to get a deep breath. Understandably, he was concerned. He told me he was going to reach out to a cardiologist friend at the Mayo Clinic and set up and appointment for me to be checked out upon my July 24 return. Reluctantly, I agreed. I didn’t feel it was necessary, still believing all I had was a mean cold. After all, I was in the best shape of my life. Before this cold took hold of me, I was running longer and faster than I had ever been able to. I was high-school lean, ate well and didn’t drink or smoke. I was certain I was the model of health. But, I didn’t want to keep my dad concerned.
On July 24, I underwent six hours of testing…..scans, MRIS, blood work, all of it. At the end of the day, I was to meet with the cardiologist after he had a chance to study the results from all the tests.
When I entered his office, I fully expected him to congratulate me on being a model of health. Instead, he stood up and told me to sit down.
“Mr. Milne, I don’t know how you walked into this office,” he said quite dramatically. “Your heart… it’s…it’s a lot of things and none of it is good.”
“Do you see this fist,” he asked, with a balled-up hand. “This is the size your heart should be. Yours has ballooned up to three times its size and is about to burst.” I didn’t understand.
As fate would have it, I had developed an “epic” case of aortic valve endocarditis. Endocarditis is a bacterial infection and was, in my case, attacking my heart. The doctor (told) me, based on the deteriorated condition of my heart, I had been living with the infection for years and never knew it. He was stunned that I had managed to be running as recently as three days before.
In addition to a devastated aortic valve, my aortic root was in dire shape and the tricuspid flaps which move blood in and out of the heart had fused together. Blood had actually started to collect in my left ventricle.
“The night sweating you experienced was literally your body’s way of saying ‘I’m done, get help,’” he said.
Shocked, I explained my extremely healthy lifestyle and commitment to exercise. That was irrelevant, he said. Bacterial infections can come from teeth cleanings, cuts or scrapes and/or needle usage. Scenario number three was quickly eliminated from the possible list of guilty parties.
I was checked into the hospital the next day and underwent a full week of round-the-clock I.V. drips to rid my heart of the infection. It was only after the infection was gone that they could perform the necessary open-heart surgery.
Following more than seven hours of surgery, I was taken to recovery in intensive care with a metal aortic valve, metal aortic root and synthetic flaps. He had also performed ablations to stop an abnormal heart rhythm.
On August 11, I was sent home to recover. On August 15, exactly one week after the surgery, I walked two miles, albeit cautiously. I had been encouraged to ease back into walking every day. Within three weeks, I was walking four miles a day and six miles a day after six weeks. At my six-week check-up, the surgeon cleared me to start running again lightly. He told me to let my body dictate my speed and distance.
“The best thing you have going for you is that, with the exception of the infection, you were in excellent physical condition when you came in,” the surgeon said. “That will cut down on your recovery time by 50 percent.”
As I write this today, I am seven months removed from my surgery. I never, ever thought I would enjoy walking, let alone delighting in it. But, again, I was wrong. I get the same mental result from walking now as I ever did from running.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I do still run. But, as opposed to running 40 miles a week, I now walk about 30 and run 15. You do the math. That’s more miles than before the surgery.
Interestingly, when I was out of commission and in recovery, I actually lost weight. I dropped from 178 pounds to 158. It was all the muscle I had worked hard to build up over the years.
As I had eased my way back into running, I returned to weight training with baby steps. Today, after my 50th birthday on February 16, I feel absolutely remarkable. I’m back up to 178, running, walking and lifting weights like I had never been able to do before.
My surgeon told me that even though I had been improving my speed and distance prior to getting sick, I had been doing so with 50 percent of my potential. “You will be amazed at what 100 percent is going to do for your workouts,” he said.
While still in the hospital, I asked my doctor a devil’s-advocate question: “What if I had not come to your office that day to get checked out?”
Without missing a beat, he said it could have been a week, a month or even a year but that I would have dropped and been dead before I even hit the ground.
That made me realize two things one, I owed my dad one hell of a hug for insisting I go for the testing and, two, don’t be stupid like me. Get regular check-ups. Don’t self-diagnose and do not ignore your body’s warnings. I came too close to dying to ever take anything for granted like that again. I’m not saying you need to go for hours of testing every time you sneeze, but take pause to realize that what you have is all you have. Don’t risk losing it, especially when you work so hard to build it up and make it shine. www.runwithit.ca
Twitter: christineruns Instagram– runwithit_christineblanchette Run With It on Youtube - runwithit