John Rugen

Rugen was a first responder on 9-11. He later bacame ill in 2004 with stage4 cancer. He beat it with aggressive chemo from 2004 till 2005 and has been in full remission since. EMT Rugen than became recently ill from Covid in February. He was admitted to the hospital with mutliple symptoms and was in a telemetry bed. He has been out of work since February 16th and is expected to be out for an unknown time. John is eager to get back to doing what he loves doing and that's working EMS,helping others and fighting for his members. He completed his return to duty medical consisting of a Chest CT, PFT and Echo. PFT he just barely passed . ECHO came back with LVH now on HTN meds and Chest CT showed nodules in right lung. He was  then sent for a CT/PET which came back with FDG activity in his right lung and brain. EMT Rugen was also sent for a MRI which showed white matter. He was than sent for a 4 week and 6 week follow up CT from his orginal CT to see if the nodules were just inflammation from covid19. Both scans showed no decrease in size. Due to his medical history and how covid affects lymph nodes surgery has been recommended and scheduled to see what is going on in his right lung. Surgery for john consists of a biopsy to see what this is and if it's needed he will either have a partial or full lobectomy. He will been  hospitalized for a few days post op to see how he responds. He  will  then have to see if he is capable of returning to full duty  due after having lost lung function/capacity originally from his chemo in 2004 and scaring. With the lobectomy it will bring his  pulmanary numbers down even more. EMT Rugen has been in Pre-Hospital care since the age of 13 starting out as a volunteer than working for Privates, Voluntary, CUNY and FDNY. He has been with the Union since 2005 and has held
multiple positions. All he's done is help people now lets help him.