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PEORIA Everyone thought COVID-19 was the cause when 23-year-old John Wlodarchak ended up in OSF HealthCare Saint Francis Medical Center in April 2020 suffering from heart failure.
Wlodarchak, who lives in Mendota, had always been healthy. Just the week before he started having flu-like symptoms after he had run four miles, something he did regularly as a former high school cross-country runner. But COVID-19 was not the cause test after test came back negative for COVID-19 and other viruses that can damage the heart.
“We may never be able to prove what happened to John. The doctors all said it looked like COVID, but who knows, we may never know. The timing was pretty ironic, that everything happened when the world was shutting down with the COVID, said John’s mother, Carol Wlodarchak, on March 24 while sitting next to her son, who was home and doing well after a heart transplant Feb. 27.