Eagles head trainer Rick Burkholder held a conference call this evening to discuss Jeremy Maclin's situation and give some background on what he and the team has been going through this summer. However, the important takeaway here is that Maclin is experiencing no symptoms, his weight is back, he is in good shape and will likely return to practice within 7-10 days.
In mid Februrary/early March, Maclin was having weight loss, night sweats, fever and generally what you might see as flu like symptoms. Burkholder said that the Eagles did not know about the situation initially because of the lockout. In fact, Burkholder heard about Maclin having an illness through a media report and got Dr Dorsheimer, the Eagles physician who was on the scene for the Mike Patterson incident, to get in contact with Jeremy. Dr Dorsheimer and Maclin's father, who is a urologist, began treating him in Philadelphia and putting him through a battery of tests to rule out a number of different diseases.
They did discover that he had enlarged lymph nodes and had abnormal blood tests, but could not come to a conclusion on what the cause was. He then returned to St. Louis and basically went through the tests again and got essentially the same inconclusive results. When he did report to the Eagles, Burkholder said he was in great shape and his only request was that the Eagles not disclose what he was going through.
From the point he came into camp, the Eagles knew he had a laproscopic surgery scheduled back in St. Louis to finally rule out cancer or any other life threatening illnesses. That was why he left for St Louis prior to the first preseason game. He says Maclin does have some inflammation in his system, which they will treat, but he displays no symptoms. Burkholder admitted that they don't definitively know what exactly it was that he had, but they have ruled out all serious, potentially life threatening possibilities.
Maclin will rejoin the team this weekend and has been cleared to resume running and working out. If all goes well, he will likely be cleared to return to full practice in 7-10 days. Burkholder says that it depends on conditioning and what Andy Reid says, but he does "feel safe" in saying that Maclin will be ready by opening day.