Inflammation

CLEARWATER, Fla. - Chase Utley still can swing a bat, this much is sure. He stood at home plate in Bright House Field, lashing at every ball thrown his way during batting practice Saturday morning, even hitting one out of the park. A few feet behind the cage, Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. explained Utley's lack of progress in recovering from patellar tendinitis and the decision to administer a cortisone injection Friday. Utley kept swinging because his right knee doesn't hurt when stationary.

Eric Desjardins had not participated in a single practice in the preseason, hadn't played a lick on the ice, and was as much a stranger to the Flyers as to himself. Seeing him play Saturday night against Montreal, you had to wonder how that was possible. In his season debut, Desjardins - who had been sidelined since September with pelvic inflammation - got an assist, had a plus-3 showing on a regular shift with Paul Coffey, and worked with both the power-play and the penalty-killing units.

One woman left Johns Hopkins' intensive-care unit believing her husband and nurse had been plotting to kill her. Another ICU patient had flashbacks of hospital walls covered in blood. A third had visions of big spiders riding bicycles in her room. Suddenly, a favorite hobby, gardening, felt creepy. Doctors used to think patients returned to normal after the delusions and hallucinations of ICU delirium stopped. They're learning instead that some leave the hospital with terrifying false memories, often of being assaulted or imprisoned.

The mysterious pain that forced Phillies rookie righthander Garrett Stephenson to miss his scheduled start Tuesday night at Olympic Stadium has been given a name. Expos club orthopedist Larry Coughlin examined Stephenson last night and said that he has inflammation of the patellar femoral joint in his left knee. Surgery will not be required. Phillies club physician Phillip Marone will take a look at Stephenson when the team returns home this weekend. It was not immediately clear, however, when Stephenson would be able to pitch again.

An autopsy revealed that Danny Rumph, the 21-year-old college basketball player who collapsed after a pickup game on Sunday, died of cardiomyopathy, according to the Philadelphia Health Department. Cardiomyopathy is an inflammation of the heart, according to the American Heart Association's Web site. In one form of cardiomyopathy, "the muscle mass of the left ventricle enlarges," sometimes causing cardiac arrhythmia and sudden death, according to the Heart Association. "We were told it was an enlarged heart," Rumph's uncle, Marcus Owens, said yesterday.

An alarming situation worsened yesterday when catcher Carlos Ruiz returned to Philadelphia to have his sprained left wrist examined. An MRI conducted by team physician Michael Ciccotti revealed no structural damage but showed inflammation, according to general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. The team will decide today whether Ruiz needs a cortisone shot, which would render him unavailable for three to five days. "It was actually good news, because there was no structural damage," Amaro said.

Five years ago, at age 49, Greg Walter felt uncharacteristically forgetful and confused. "I've been able to multitask for years, and all of a sudden, I was not remembering things," recalled the hospital administrator. "I was working off Post-it notes. Until I crossed something off the Post-it, I couldn't be sure what I had done. " He was not, as he initially feared, in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. The culprit turned out to be Lipitor, the cholesterol-lowering statin he was taking to prevent heart disease.

Massive bacterial infections, such as the kind that killed Muppet master Jim Henson, are best treated with antibiotics and speed. But Henson evidently had passed the "point of no return" by the time he sought treatment, according to a professor at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP). Henson died Wednesday of a quick-spreading bacterial pneumonia. Robert Austrian, professor and chairman emeritus of the Department of Research Medicine at HUP, said yesterday that the bacteria, streptococcus, "can kill a patient rather quickly.

This is perhaps the biggest reason these Phillies might not be flukes: When they need a well-pitched game, there's a fine chance they will get one. Last night, the Phils were coming off an ugly loss on Tuesday and anticipating a three-game weekend series in Atlanta, which can leave any team badly chopped. So Tommy Greene, despite a late-inning salvo of line drives, threw nine strong innings, limiting the Pittsburgh Pirates to five hits and a single run in a 4-1, rain-delayed Phillies' victory.

Question: What causes my urine to have a lot of foam? Is it serious? Answer: Have you ever had lemon meringue pie? Those tall peaks of frothy white that make up meringue are made from two simple ingredients: sugar and egg whites. When whipped, egg whites will at first foam, and then stiffen into white peaks with continued beating. That's a result of the unique properties of the albumin protein of egg whites. It's normal to have a trace of protein in standing urine, which foams like meringue as the urine mixes with the water in the toilet.