Edward Aschoff (34), ESPN reporter, dead on birthday after battling pneumonia and HLH

[up2trouble]

https://nypost.com/2019/12/24/espns-...ing-pneumonia/

ESPN college football reporter Edward Aschoff died Tuesday, his 34th birthday, the network said.

Aschoff had pneumonia, which he revealed on Instagram after serving as a sideline reporter during the Michigan-Ohio State game on Nov. 30.

?Covering #TheGame was a lot of fun,? Aschoff wrote two days following the game. ?Getting pneumonia ? not so much. But, hey, I?m a hockey player.?

ESPN didn?t announce Aschoff?s cause of death, but Florida sports reporter Steven Abolverdi indicated on Twitter it was a result of the pneumonia.

?Devastated to hear my friend @AschoffESPN has passed away after a battle with pneumonia,? Abolverdi tweeted before the ESPN report. ?Ed was a big reason I decided to pursue journalism. He took me under his wing at the Sun and I?m forever grateful. Incredible reporter and an even better person. You will be missed!?

Aschoff leaves behind his fianc?e, Katy Berteau, whom he thanked earlier this month on Instagram for taking care of him.

Aschoff covered University of Florida athletics for the Gainesville Sun before joining ESPN in 2011.

?For as good of a reporter Ed was, he was an even better person,? ESPN executive editor Lauren Reynolds told her outlet. ?He always put people first ? those whose stories he told, and those who had the honor of working alongside him.?

[raisedbywolves]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/12/27/healt...rnd/index.html

When ESPN reporter Edward Aschoff died, he had been diagnosed with multifocal pneumonia and a rare disease known as HLH, his fianc?e tweeted.

Aschoff was first admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with pneumonia in many parts of his lungs but was brought back to the emergency room when antibiotic treatment failed and he got worse, Katy Berteau said.

"After many tests - bone marrow and lung biopsies - treatment was started for a presumed diagnosis of HLH," she tweeted. "Within 3 days of being moved into the ICU, he passed."

HLH, hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, is a rare disease that affects the immune system.

She did not provide any further details about the manner of Aschoff's death, which occurred on his 34th birthday.

Other people, including Aschoff himself, expressed surprise about the seriousness of the illness in a young man in apparently good health.

"Anyone ever had multifocal (bilateral) pneumonia in their early 30s as some who never gets sick and has a very good immune system? Asking for two friends ... my lungs," he tweeted on December 5.

More questions have come up about his second diagnosis, HLH. It is unclear if Aschoff had HLH or pneumonia first, if one came from the other, and exactly how he died so quickly.

HLH is a rare disease that affects the immune system, making certain white blood cells attack other blood cells and enlarging the spleen and liver, according to Johns Hopkins Medicine.

It can be inherited or acquired, Johns Hopkins said. About a quarter of cases are passed down through families, and the rest come from infections, a weakened immune system and cancer.

Symptoms can include coughing, difficulty breathing, fever, headaches, rashes, swollen lymph nodes, jaundice and digestive problems, according to Johns Hopkins.

There is treatment for HLH, and acquired forms may clear when properly treated, Johns Hopkins said. If familial HLH goes untreated, it is usually fatal.

Treatments include chemotherapy, immunotherapy, steroids, antibiotic drugs and antiviral drugs. Stem cell transplants can cure HLH in most cases if drug treatments don't work, Johns Hopkins said.

There is no way to prevent HLH, the medical center said.

[up2trouble]

Former ESPN reporter Edward Aschoff had cancer when he died, fianc?e reveals

https://nypost.com/2020/01/15/former...ancee-reveals/

Former ESPN reporter Edward Aschoff had an aggressive form of cancer when he died on Christmas Eve, his fianc?e revealed Wednesday.

Katy Berteau said she only learned of the diagnosis after his death when the hospital delivered the final results from his lung biopsy.

“Unbeknownst to us, Edward had stage 4, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in his lungs,” Berteau wrote from Aschoff’s Twitter account.

“This is an aggressive type of cancer that is usually undetectable until it is very advanced.”

Berteau said pneumonia and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma — which Aschoff was suffering from at the time of his death — can trigger HLH, a rare disease that attacks the immune system.

Aschoff was also receiving treatment for HLH before he died.

Berteau said the development “has helped me knowing that his passing was inevitable, and I’m at least grateful he didn’t have to go through the painful treatment and drawn out process of battling the disease.”

She added: “He wouldn’t have wanted to go out like that. His ass was too vain.”