Tandy Harmon was vibrant, cheerful and healthy. At 36, the Gresham mom was rarely sick.

But 10 days ago, she started feeling ill. It was a Sunday. The next day, she stayed home from her job as a bartender at Bradford's Sports Lounge in Northeast Portland.

She figured it was the flu, said her boyfriend, Steven Lundin.

By that Wednesday, she ended up in intensive care at Legacy Emanuel Medical Center in North Portland, diagnosed with the flu, pneumonia and a staph infection, Lundin said.

Two days later, the single mother of two, died, leaving family and friends reeling.

"That's all it took was a couple of days," Lundin said. "I can't believe it."

She was supposed to be the maid of honor when best friend Millie Shaw gets married this weekend.

"It is just devastating that she is not going to be in my wedding on Saturday," said Shaw, who knew Harmon for 18 years. "She was in really good health."

Every year, the flu kills thousands of people, mostly the elderly, the very young or those with compromised immune systems. It rarely turns deadly for those like Harmon, apparently healthy and at the prime of her life.

But the flu can lead to severe bacterial infections, said Dr. John Townes, head of the infectious disease program at Oregon Health & Science University.

"The usual average healthy person doesn't die of influenza," Townes said, but "influenza will lower your resistance to certain bacterial infections like staph infection or pneumococcal infection."

About one-third of the population is walking around with staph bacteria -- Staphylococcus aureus – in their nose, he said. They don't feel sick and the bacteria don't pose a problem.

Then they get the flu. That opens the floodgates for the bacteria to invade their body, Townes said.

"This happens every year," Townes said. "This is why we harp about getting a flu vaccine."

This year the flu has hit hard, hospitalizing 900 people in the Portland area between October and the second week in January, the latest data available. By early January, two Oregon children had died. The state also reported about 25 outbreaks in long-term care facilities. Oregon health officials do not track adult deaths from the flu.

Harmon died on the same day as a 22-month-old boy who was ill with what his family thought was the flu, KATU reported. It turned out he had bacterial meningitis, the TV station said.

During flu season, diagnosing an infection can be tricky for the average person.

"One shouldn't assume it's the flu because it's flu season," Townes said. "Lots of things can look like the flu that aren't."

If you're sick all over, you probably have the flu, Townes said. Stay home, rest and stay away from others.

But you should see a doctor if you start to feel better and then get worse, Townes said. That's a sign of something serious.

Bacterial meningitis is often caused by pneumococcus, which can be prevented by vaccine. All children under 2 should be vaccinated against the bug, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And anyone over 6 months should get a flu shot, they say.

It might not prevent the flu, but can stem severe symptoms, health officials say.

Harmon didn't get a flu shot this year, Shaw said.

She developed an infection from MRSA, Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The bacterium is difficult to treat because it's resistant to some commonly used antibiotics. Only a small fraction – about 2 percent of those living with staph bacteria – carry MRSA.

Harmon's symptoms became severe fast.

Lundin dropped her off at Legacy Mt. Hood Medical Center in Southeast Portland at 6 a.m. Physicians said she had the flu and told her to go home, drink fluids and rest, Shaw said.

Two hours later, she returned to the medical center and had to be put on a ventilator.

That's when they diagnosed her with MRSA and pneumonia, said Brad Fouts, owner of Bradford's Sports Lounge.

She was transferred to Emanuel. When Lundin went to see her at the ICU last week after he got off work, she was in an induced coma and on life support.

"They had tubes running to circulate the blood through the whole body," Lundin said.

Her organs started to shut down. Her liver failed and her skin started to discolor.

"We had an option to amputate (limbs) and keep trying to revive her – but if it's not going to work, it's not going to work," Lundin said. "That that was a really hard decision to make as a unit."

Last Friday, friends and family made the heart-wrenching decision to take Harmon off life support.

She leaves two children, Jimmie, 12, and Madison, 11. They will stay with Harmon's grandmother in Gresham, where Harmon lived with Lundin.

Fouts has a memorial slideshow set up in his bar, with food specials to raise money for the children. There is also a GoFundMe account.

Fouts is organizing a memorial for Harmon on Feb. 10 at the sports bar.

"She was an amazing girl," he said. "She's going to be so dearly missed."

-- Lynne Terry