Life for Lonnie

For those of you out there that know Lonnie Kessler he is in desperate need of help. He has fallen very ill to an autoimmune disease called sarcoidosis. It is a very rare disease that starts in the lungs and can spread to the other organs like kidneys, liver, heart, and brain. It also attacks the joints in some rare cases and causes severe swelling. This has happen in Lonnie's case causing him to have horrible swelling in his knees, ankle, feet, hands, fingers, toes, and wrist.

This all started in November of 2013. He woke up one morning to go to work and collapsed getting out of bed. His wife had to help him up off the floor, she went and tried to get him some old crutches they had around the house and they would not help him to stand because he had lost all strength in his wrist. She was able to help him to the car and drive him to the hospital. While in the emergency room the dr thought this was a very strange case. His knees were so swollen that he felt like his knee caps were going to pop out the backside of his legs. By the grace of God the ER dr happen to be good friends with a reumitoligist which  he called personally and asked if he had heard of such a condition, and theReumitoligist told him to take a chest x-Ray. They found several irregular masses inside his lungs and the dr. said send him to my office right away. He checked Lonnie out and then he called another Dr. which is a pulmonologist and told him he was sure this was a case of sarcoidosis. The pulmonologist saw the x-Ray and in early December did a lung biopsy to conform. They had him on a high dose steroids with all other types of med (13 in all) Just to try to stop the spreading and to try to reduce the swelling. This was still not helping the swelling of the joints. He could barely get up out of bed to use the bathroom. In January they put him on chemo med to try and help, which started to help some but he was still in and out the hospital with issues. On several occasions his knees would swell to the size of cantaloupes and they would try to drain them and found no fluid, it was the tissue around the knees causing the problem. They had to inject high doses of steroids right into his knee to get it to go down after a few hours.

This has been his life since then he has been to emery in Atlanta and they could not figure out anything. He is now being sent to the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville Fl. to see if they can help.  In September  he will have to go to Charleston Sc. to see one the top pulmonologist in the country that specialize in sarcoidosis.

He is a loving father of 5 children and been married for almost 15yrs. Their dr bills are piling  up, not to mention travel, copays,  and being out of work since December. He was getting short term disability from work, but that ran out in July and now he is in the process of applying for social security but who knows how long that will take. Just his meds are around $240 a month. And now with no money coming in they really need your help and prayers...