Channelopathy describes a group of diseases with similar traits (ion channel dysfunction), not one disease. And, there are huge differences in treatability, symptoms, etc. among the diseases, so until I hear a specific disease, I don’t buy this.

Even though I hopehopehope its true because I love Rocco and wish nothing but the best of luck to him.

One thing still concerns me:

A VISIT TO THE CLEVELAND CLINIC LAST WEEK REVEALED THAT DOCTORS HAD MISDIAGNOSED HIS ILLNESS.

Staph infection?

I may pick it up later, but I’m throwing this out there now. That condition is congenital so there would have to be a family history in order for it to just pop up in Rocco. Of the different types of channelopathy, he would fit in Periodic Paralysis which is brought on by too much or too little potassium.

Chronic muscle fatigue can be attributed to either Mitochondrial Myopathy or Periodic Paralysis but the latter, again, is a genetic thing so if there is no family history of the condition then that would have been ruled out.

I’m not much of a conspiracy guy but the timing for this to come out is perfectly aligned with a multi-million dollar payday. Rocco has a lot to gain by someone officially coming out and releasing good news. While I sincerely hope this is the case it doesn’t sit right.

I sure would love to see him play everyday RF/DH for the Rays.

How does a healthy Rocco compare to Bradley, Giambi, etc. in terms of contract and effectiveness? I’d have to say pretty good.

Right before I go out and buy myself a unicorn.

IF it is true, then I still want a DH and Rocco can be the 4th OF.

The guy said “his knees started shaking after 5 innings”

Whatever he has, it is not good.

Sorry Rocco, you are a great dude and had some great AB’s and catches in your all to brief Ray career.

What depresses me more is that Rocco is basically alone as far as suitors go. We may take him back because it looks like all the interested teams turned their attention else where.

If Ken Bell could interview one person, living or dead, it would be Jesus. They’d talk about life. How nice.

I will say that misdiagnoses happen all the time. As someone who has worked in the field, as a lab technician, and an EMT (and with many other health professionals in the family), I can say with confidence that there are a LOT of errors in medicine.

"Hi Erik:

We are tracking down Rocco’s father today and doing more of an indepth story on this. I should know more later this afternoon."

So we’ll see where that goes.

This may seem like it’s coming out of nowhere, but I think Rocco’s illness is related to the Lyme disease he had as a teenager. I’ve always been surprised that nobody has mentioned this. I grew up a few towns over from Rocco, where deer ticks that carry lyme are common. (I guess they’re common all over the northeast) A friend of mine also got the disease in his late teens. My friend went to college in the northwest and all the doctors he saw couldn’t diagnose it. They actually told him they thought he had MS. Finally it was diagnosed as Lyme disease, and he was treated.

After the treatment he was fine and actually ran several ultra marathons (100 miles) in the following years. But now I’ve heard that he’s become sick again. He is now in his late late 20’s and has no energy – he is constantly exhausted and has been unable to find any kind of cure.

I have no idea if this is really related. I’m know during his illness Rocco has had hundreds of people approach him and tell him what they think is wrong with him and it drove him crazy. But I thought the similarities were pretty amazing.

Looking up Lyme disease on wikipedia – it mentions that Post or Chronic Lyme disease has “a range of medically unexplained symptoms”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyme_disease#Post-Lyme_disease_symptoms_and_.22chronic_Lyme_disease.22

Anyway, I may be completely wrong and I usually don’t like to speculate on things I really know nothing about, but again, I thought it was worth mentioning.

I work for a local TV news station’s web site, so seeing a poorly written story in all caps, to me, isn’t unheard of, especially if it came from an anchor or reporter.

TV reporters are used to writing for television, which is to say, it doesn’t matter if something is spelled correctly, as long as they pronounce it okay. When writing scripts for broadcast, text is typically done entirely in caps.

Which isn’t to say it should be okay for Ken Bell to post something online as if it were going to be used on-air. That station should at the very least have an editor who proofreads and correctly formats it. But take it from me, times are tough all around and perhaps online editors are a luxury that station couldn’t afford.

TL;DR version: It’s a legitimate news story from a local TV station. They’re not a tabloid that’s going to make anything up, so I strongly believe there’s at the very least, a kernel of truth behind that article.