McClatchy Washington Bureau

This should have been a glorious week for Michael Lohberg. The six-time Olympic swim coach was scheduled to leave Fort Lauderdale on Friday for Singapore and a training camp with his best-known swimmer, 41-year-old Dara Torres, and then he would have gone on to the Beijing Olympics to guide Torres and seven other swimmers who train under him at the Coral Springs Aquatic Center.

Instead, Lohberg, 58, was suddenly fighting for his life after being diagnosed with aplastic anemia, a rare blood disorder that could be fatal.

He planned to be on a friend's private jet at 3 a.m. Friday en route to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., to see if specialists could save him.

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