When most of us catch a cold, we assume we’ll recover within a few days.
That’s what Jared Maynard, a 33-year-old weightlifter, physical therapist and father of three from Ontario, Canada, believed when he developed a cold in January of last year.
But I was wrong.
Mr. Maynard, his wife and three daughters came down with what seemed like a mild cold. His daughters and his wife improved within a week.
Maynard, however, seemed to be getting worse. Finally, his skin began to turn yellow and he became delirious.
Subsequent hospital tests revealed that he was not suffering from a cold, but something much more sinister.
Maynard developed a rare disease called hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis in response to what seemed like a mild cold. He lost 43 pounds while in the hospital and was on life support for five weeks.
Maynard, pictured here before his illness, with his wife Ashley, 32, and their three daughters, Elizabeth, 6, Mary-Claire, 6, and Cecilia, 3.
His “cold” was actually a virus that had triggered a rare immune system disease that had caused his liver and kidneys to stop working.
Doctors discovered he had developed life-threatening hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (HLH), which hijacks the body’s immune system and attacks it as if it were a foreign invader.
This makes a person already fighting a virus much sicker and weaker than they normally would be.
Doctors placed Maynard on life support, trying to make him comfortable in what they assumed would be his final days.
This condition is rare and doctors are not sure how many people it affects. A study of internists at Rochester General HospitaI found that there were 16,136 cases of the disease diagnosed in the US between 2006 and 2019.
It is fatal in about 40 percent of people who develop it, L. doctors said.It is estimated that the French Federation of Immunopathology.
There are two types of disease. One is triggered by your genetics and the other is triggered in response to a virus or bacteria.
In Mr. Maynard’s case, doctors determined that he developed HLH in response to the Epstein-barr virus, also known as monovirus, or kissing disease.
With plenty of rest, people can usually recover from mononucleosis within a few weeks. according to the mayo clinic.
But the combination of mono and HLH caused Maynard to suffer organ failure.
He was sedated, put on a ventilator and put on dialysis at the end of January.
Doctors normally treat HLH with a cocktail of chemotherapy drugs, but because the treatment is hard on the body and Mr. Maynard was weak, they couldn’t give him the full treatment.
His doctors were skeptical about whether he would survive and started palliative care, thinking his days were numbered.
But in March he miraculously began to recover.
“In fact, it was enough to earn me the nickname ‘Miracle Man,'” Mr. Maynard told Jam News.
That was not the end of his journey.
Mr. Maynard’s doctors were unsure if he would survive his intense HLH treatment. But he pulled through and earned the nickname “Miracle Man.” When he was allowed to return home in May 2023, he began strength training again.
In the five weeks since he was on life support, Maynard lost 43 pounds. His body had devoured his muscles in order to survive the long weeks of bed rest.
“My doctors told me that if I hadn’t been as fit and as strong as I was at the beginning, I probably wouldn’t have survived,” he said.
He remained in the hospital until May 2023, where he relearned how to walk, sit, stand and even breathe, talk and swallow again.
Even as he began to regain his motor functions, he suffered nerve damage in his feet from chemotherapy and struggled to reawaken his sense of smell.
But since he came out, his focus has been on regaining his strength, despite the pain he still suffers. As a strength coach, he focused on weightlifting.
Since he started lifting weights again in June 2023, Maynard has worked his way up to being able to lift 465 pounds.
On May 25, he participated in his first weightlifting competition since he became ill.
But by far her greatest achievement, she said, was being able to pick up her daughters again.
When he was able to lift the three, he said, “I felt like a piece of my heart had been restored.”
Maynard has always been dedicated to fitness, but said her harrowing experience underscored the importance of taking time to exercise.
“I would like people to know that building muscle, strength and physical endurance is the best life insurance policy you will ever buy,” he said, adding, “it’s too easy to put yourself at the bottom of your priority list among work, school and, children and other obligations.’
‘We all think we have time to get our act together, but we don’t. I found out the hard way.