A true testament

A small piece of coral nearly killed Marc McCaslin.

The Spokane man was vacationing with his family on Maui last April when he caught his foot on a jagged bit. He washed the cut in the ocean and didn’t give it another thought.

Less than two weeks after coming back home, though, McCaslin felt like he was coming down with the flu.

As the weekend progressed, McCaslin became disoriented.

“My concern was maybe he was getting dehydrated,” says his wife of 24 years, Carolee McCaslin.

She had no reason to worry about anything more serious. Her husband was exceptionally healthy, a die-hard runner who hardly ever called in sick from his job as a claims section manager with State Farm.

But McCaslin’s situation was serious — and about to get worse. A massive infection was taking over his body.

By the time he got to Rockwood Clinic that Monday morning, his kidneys were failing. An ambulance took the 45-year-old father of two to Holy Family Hospital, where a team of doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with him.

At first, they thought McCaslin had meningitis. Two days of tests revealed that the culprit was actually Staphylococcus Aureus, a bacterium that’s becoming increasingly resistant to antibiotics.

No one can say for sure how he picked it up, but it’s believed he became infected when he stepped on the coral on the beach.

The bacteria zeroed in on McCaslin’s heart. He suffered three strokes that left his right side paralyzed for a short time (though he has no lasting damage). The infection had eaten through his mitral valve, and he would need immediate open-heart surgery to install an artificial valve.

“The doctor had told me but for my strong heart, I probably would not have made it through,” says McCaslin, who has run one marathon, some 20 half-marathons, and was preparing for another full marathon when he became sick.

McCaslin, who was transferred to Sacred Heart Medical Center, stayed in the hospital about three weeks and was hopeful the worst was behind him once he was sent home.

But he just didn’t feel like he was getting better.

His back hurt. So did his stomach. The thought of food made him sick.

He kept losing weight. Physical therapy was no help.

A gastroenterologist looked into his abdomen with a scope and discovered the problem: A large aneurysm in one of his arteries.

It had been noted on his original chart that he had a 2-centimeter aneurysm, McCaslin says, but no one ever told him. By the time the gastroenterologist brought it to his attention, it had grown to 5 centimeters.

“He was definitely in jeopardy as far as it rupturing,” says Dr. Gregory Luna, the vascular surgeon who eventually operated on McCaslin.

McCaslin had a particularly rare type of aneurysm, called a mycotic aneurysm. It develops when bacteria invade the arterial wall and weaken it.

As the artery deteriorates, it begins to bulge, and threatens to burst. And when it ruptures, the outlook is not good.

Luna removed the damaged portion of the artery and, finally, McCaslin started getting better.

“He’s really a testament to the human spirit and the capacity to recuperate,” Luna says.

McCaslin missed four months of work, but he’s back now. And he’s running again, between four and six miles a day.

“I’m still trying to figure out exactly what it all means,” he says. “You’re put through a test and wonder what the significance is.

“You certainly see things differently.”

He’ll be on a blood thinner for the rest of his life, to prevent clots from forming on the new heart valve. But, other than that, he has few daily reminders of the ordeal of the past months.

He still even wears the Maui T-shirt from that trip.

“We’ll likely go back,” he says. “It still is a beautiful place.”

But, he adds, “They didn’t advertise any of this in the travel brochures.”