Heath Bell Recovering After Bout With Typhoid Fever on Vacation

by Pat Lackey

Filed under: Padres

Baseball players have a knack for injuring themselves in strange ways when they're not on the field, but Padres' closer Heath Bell has taken that art to a new level. While on vacation with his wife in Fiji, he contracted typhoid fever and had to be hospitalized later on the trip when he and his wife were renewing their wedding vows in Hawaii.

On the assumption that most people reading this are only familiar with typhoid in that it's something you get while playing the computer game Oregon Trail, Typhoid is caused by a form of Salmonella and according to Wikipedia, it's generally passed by drinking unclean water that's been contaminated by exposure to other people with the disease.

It's absorbed through the intestines, which makes it a nightmarish flu/fever combination that can progress into a slow heart-rate, delirium, intestinal hemorrhaging and possibly death if left untreated. As a bacterial infection, though, it's fairly easy to treat, and they caught Bell's well before it became serious, so none of this is a worry for him.

 

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