Hello, my name is Kevin Lawson, I am a 61 year old retired special education teacher, husband of 39 years, and father of two daughters. I taught painting and decorating at a local trade regional high school before I was forced into early retirement in my early 40’s due to disability stemming from multiple health issues.  I have been disabled and in declining health for over the past 20 years of my life. When I was still teaching I suffered an immense heart attack, requiring me to undergo a risky open-heart quadruple bypass. Sadly that was only the beginning of my troubles; I have had multiple heart attacks since, numerous stents put in, arteries from my arm, leg, and mammary harvested and placed into my heart, 2 pacemaker defibrillators, and a Watchman device implanted into my heart, all in attempts to keep this ticker ticking. All of these and others have amounted to close to 25 major surgeries and more than a handful of chronic illnesses and health problems that keep arising over the years.

          One of these surgeries was meant to help me be able to walk like I once used to, but it ended up changing my life forever for the worse. I could barely walk from chronic pain and finally received my first hip replacement, but I would discover years down the road to have been recalled as a defective metal-on-metal hip, resulting in me having a nearly fatal amount of cobalt-chromium blood poisoning affecting almost every organ in my body. I have had to have the same hip replaced a total of three times, yet I am still unable to walk more than a few feet at a time without assistance and the use of a wheelchair. This is not all due to the hip however, I have become so greatly weakened and my body so frail from additional illnesses as multiple brain tumors, chronic congestive heart failure, kidney failure nearing the point of dialysis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, spinal stenosis with degeneration of the spine, just to name a few.

          I have been hospitalized more times than I can count, so much so that my youngest daughter wrote in her college admittance essay that at a young age it was no longer a surprise for her to wake up and find the walls of her bedroom pulsing with the familiar red and blue lights from the ambulance in our driveway, here to take her dad to the hospital once again. Throughout these years my family has never left my side during any hospital stay. Somehow through it all, we have each remained as strong as we can, and continue to keep our spirits high.

          Nonetheless, with so many medical issues and surgeries come even more medical bills, which is why I am writing this today. I have been hospitalized twice just in the month of July this year alone and each time I stubbornly put off calling an ambulance for myself, while being unable to breathe with fluid filling my lungs from systolic congestive heart failure, all because I knew we could not afford the ambulance ride. My medical expenses have become insurmountable and we are unable to keep our heads above water. I have refinanced the mortgage on my family’s home three times in order to pay some of my medical bills, but that is now no longer an option or solution. It has come to this point where I need to ask for help, from the bottom of my (though it may be defective) heart. Any amount of your generosity will be a huge help to my family and myself, and we will be eternally grateful.