It was the worst earache George Garvin had ever experienced.

The 72-year-old Westchester man was preparing to head with his family to their second home in Florida, in early January, when he asked his wife Martha to run to the pharmacy for ear medicine. Garvin took the medicine and felt some relief at first, but then his condition worsened.

He went to bed complaining of vertigo and woke up at 1 a.m. feeling even worse. In addition to the earache, he now had a backache and stomachache. About 90 minutes later, he was in the emergency room at Adventist Hinsdale Hospital. Not long after that, he lost consciousness.

During a CAT scan doctors noticed air in Garvin's brain.

"We knew at that point it was something very serious," Martha Garvin said of her family.

Garvin then underwent an MRI and a spinal tap and was placed on a respirator. Richard Wiet, a neuro-otologist who treated Garvin at Adventist Hinsdale Hospital, conducted an emergency myringotomy—an ear incision—to relieve the pressure that was building and take a bacterial culture. The fluid he drained was sent to the microbiology laboratory and, later, a blood culture identified bacteria in the fluid that caused meningitis.

During surgery, Wiet discovered spinal fluid in Garvin's ear.

His condition was caused by a bacterial infection that worsened over several days and became a raging infection, penetrating from his ear mastoid/temporal bone toward his brain. Edward Sherman, the infectious diseases specialist who treated Garvin, called Garvin's case a very unusual occurrence of a very common problem—an ear and sinus infection.

He was in a coma for eight days. During that time, his wife and five adult children gathered around his hospital bed, praying, singing hymns and reading scriptures aloud.

"Faith is very important to our family," Martha Garvin said. "We truly believe in the power of prayer."

The Garvins are active members in their church. Son Bart Garvin sent out a blast of e-mails to members of their church asking them to pray for his father. Their prayers were answered when Garvin regained consciousness. Martha Garvin recalls the moment with a smile.

"When he began to come to just a little bit, I said, 'George, I love you,'" Martha Garvin said. "And a tear trickled down his cheek."

Because the couple's eldest daughter, Lorri Smith, is a nurse, she knew that interaction meant he was on the mend.

"Mother, he knew who you are, he knew what you said and he responded appropriately," Smith said at the time. "Dad is back."

The odds were stacked against Garvin; a 40 to 60 percent mortality rate is associated with cases such as his, Wiet said.

"His recovery is truly remarkable," stated Wiet, who repaired a large cerebral spinal fluid leak in his skull after Garvin regained consciousness.

The Garvins praised their doctors, who worked as a team to care for Garvin.

"It took all of us working together," Sherman said.

Wiet agreed it was a team effort. Ravi Yalamanchi, an internal medicine specialist who treated Garvin, said Adventist Hinsdale Hospital is fortunate to have Wiet.

"If we didn't have Dr. Wiet, I would have sent Mr. Garvin downtown to one of the university hospitals because of the complications," Yalamanchi said.

Martha Garvin didn't realize just how serious the situation was until her husband recovered.

"They never told me how bad it was until it was all over," she said of the doctors and medical staff. "They had very little hope he would ever survive. And if he did survive, his brain would be mush. We had no idea what to expect."

Garvin undergoes outpatient therapy three times a week. He, his family and his doctors consider his recovery a miracle.

"They call him the miracle man. The infectious disease doctors, the neurologists—they were all just amazed he came through this," Martha Garvin said of her husband. "It's quite a story."

Lisa Parro, public relations specialist, Adventist Midwest Health