Lonnie's Battle With Autoimmune

In October 2022, my 16 year old had a dental surgery to have his wisdom teeth removed. Unfortunately, it caused a flare up of a rare autoimmune disease we didn't know he had: GPA Vasculitis. It caused damage to almost every organ but his lungs took the biggest hit. After 3 ICU stays and being intubated twice with many close calls, he received a double lung transplant in May 2023.

While we were told this rare autoimmune disease shouldn't flare back up due to the medications he'd be on and if it did flare up, it shouldn't make its way to his new transplanted lungs ... they were wrong. After 2 years of celebrating his success lung transplant, we found out Lonnie was in a full blown vasculitis flare up again and it had made its way to his new lungs.

He was hospitalized and is now doing chemotherapy for 3 months. We recently found out his lung function has dropped and while things aren't looking like we hoped, Lonnie has stayed in good spirits. He has graduated high school, moved out with his now FIANCE but ... he isn't able to work at this point in time even though he keeps trying.

All funds donated will be used towards balancing his expenses while he's out of work. In the event he's able to return back to his apprenticeship to be an electrician, all funds will be set aside if he needs to relocate to Texas for his 2nd transplant as Colorado doesn't do them. This isn't something we are anticipating right now but it is a very possible reality for him that we have to prepare for whether it's in the near or far future.