A Frightening Off-Field Foe

"Our doctors took a swab of it and it takes 48 hours to get the confirmed test back that it's MRSA; and within 48 hours Brandon was already in the hospital," Tyer said. "So we didn't know that's what it was."

Noble was found to have a MRSA infection. At Sibley Memorial Hospital, doctors cleaned out his leg and drained a bursa in his knee, finding it to be full of pus. Noble had his knee flushed during a second surgery, and felt better the next day. He remained in the hospital for four days, receiving antibiotics and rubbing ointment in his nose daily.

Noble said Redskins owner Daniel Snyder and Coach Joe Gibbs visited him after he had been in the hospital for a day or two, when he was on standby for surgery and still was miserable. They walked into Noble's room about 9:30 p.m. and started talking to Noble's doctor. Noble had the bandage removed from his knee.

"It looked like someone was squeezing green mayonnaise out of my leg," Noble said. "It wasn't even oozing. It was like when you put your thumb over the end of a hose. I'm sitting here looking at Mr. Snyder and Coach Gibbs and they're trying to keep the conversation going with the doctor, and this pus is flying out my leg. It was gross, and they keep looking down and then looking up and I was ready for them to pass out. But I was on drugs. So I thought it was really funny, and the doctor thought it was hilarious. He talks about it all the time still."

His rehabilitation, he said, consisted of going to Redskins Park to have his knee iced, but even that wore him out. Noble was so weak as he recovered that he had to take a two- to three-hour nap every afternoon. Finally, he overcame the infection and rebuilt the muscles in his leg.

He returned briefly during training camp last summer, but suffered what was believed at first to be a minor injury in his left knee. He ended up having arthroscopic surgery in September, and the left leg became infected. "It looked like there was a football in my knee," Noble said. "It just ballooned up."

The infection got into the joint of his reconstructed left knee and essentially hid among the hardware and screws, making it harder to find and kill, Noble said. A little more than a month ago, doctors went into his left knee to drain it and clean the new infection. But they couldn't get all the pus out, so he underwent another arthroscopic surgery and remained in the hospital for another four to five days, beginning a new round of antibiotics. When Noble's doctors found out he'd had MRSA previously, he was placed in isolation, he said.

His wife delivered the couple's third child while Noble was in the hospital. His doctors were reluctant to allow Noble to be on hand for the birth of his son, but relented and permitted him to watch from a wheelchair in the back of the delivery room after he washed.

This infection is not quite as painful as the previous one, Noble said, but it's still quite uncomfortable. Noble's thigh muscles have completely atrophied, to the point that he feels like he is returning from reconstructive knee surgery all over again. His medication tears up his stomach, killing all the enzymes and bacteria in the stomach and intestines that aid in digesting food. When he tried to eat lasagna recently, Noble said, he could feel the sauce coming back up his throat. His weight has dropped from 299 pounds to 265 and his diet consists primarily of yogurt and bagels.

His symptoms are the same as they were when he had his previous infection -- a fever, chills, shakes and overall pain. He calls it "like having the flu, times 100." A nurse would come to his house to change his bandages and check his catheter, which allowed him to take intravenous antibiotics.

His newest infection has not been definitively diagnosed as MRSA, but Casolaro said Noble is receiving "presumptive MRSA" treatment. Noble has endured weekly blood tests to track both the infection and what effect his medication is having on his system.

Until yesterday, Noble was taking two antibiotics, one drug that kills anthrax and another that kills staph, he said.