A healed heart: Ontario man celebrates Valentines birthday after near-deadly infection [Video]

Glenn Dennis, 61, said it felt like he was drowning last October when he could not catch his breath.

“I was scared … I really didn’t know what was going on,” Dennis recalled, adding there were no warning signs that anything was amiss with his health.

“I was being very careful with my life, very careful of what I ate. It came as a real shock that, all of a sudden, [I was] this sick,” the Scarborough man told Global News.

Dennis called 911 and was rushed to Scarborough General Hospital in Toronto. Tests showed an infection in his heart known as endocarditis.

Dr. Subodh Verma, a cardiac surgeon-scientist and professor at the University of Toronto, said the situation was very serious and life-threatening.

“He had a severe infection involving two of the main valves of the heart, endocarditis of the aortic valve and endocarditis of the mitral valve,” Verma explained. …