An Orange County teenager is hospitalized after suddenly falling ill with a rare heart condition that some doctors say has been increasingly affecting young men.
Nolan Yearout, an athletic 15-year-old student at Estancia High School in Costa Mesa, was feeling good one day before he fell gravely ill.
“He’s been in such good shape,” said Kevin Yearout, Nolan’s father. “[He was] looking forward to baseball.”
Kevin said he was initially told the flu had been spreading around school campus at the time Nolan became sick.
“We took him to his pediatrician and that’s the first time I heard him complain that his heart hurt,” Kevin said.
Nolan was sent home at first, but that’s when his heart began hurting tremendously.
He was later diagnosed with myocarditis, a rare and serious condition that involves inflammation of a muscular layer of the heart wall.
“Myocarditis can weaken the heart and its electrical system,” according to the American Heart Association. “As a result, the heart’s ability to pump blood declines.”