Feb 27 2007
Old-school courage makes Maritimer, 73, a modern-day hero
It was more than 30 years ago that Lonnie Garnier got the news. At the age of 35, the Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, stevedore learned he had rheumatoid arthritis (RA), a chronic disease in which the body’s immune system attacks the joints, causing extreme pain, stiffness, fatigue and joint destruction, often resulting in disability.
Unlike more common osteoarthritis, RA hits people in the prime of their lives, most often between the ages of 25 to 50. More than 300,000 Canadians live with rheumatoid arthritis.
For Garnier, the pain was unbearable. He tried numerous medications. Some didn’t work at all; others relieved symptoms for only a short time.
All the while, he continued to work at his physically demanding job as a stevedore. He had a wife and a family to raise.”In those days, you had a job and you went to work, no matter how you felt,” explains Garnier, now 73 years old. “Besides, you never allowed sickness to get you down. We were taught that.”
RA takes a terrible economic toll on those who are afflicted. Within 10 years of onset of RA, 30 per cent of working-age people with the disorder no longer are in the labour force.
Three years ago, Garnier was hospitalized with RA for three weeks. It seemed he might not survive.
As a last resort, his doctor tried a new biologic treatment, HUMIRA, which works by binding to and blocking a specific protein that plays a central role in the inflammation associated with RA.
For Garnier, the treatment was life changing almost from the start. He started to feel better a few days after his first injection. He was able to get out of bed, shower and dress by himself.
Previously, just getting out of bed was excruciating and required assistance.
Since then, he has been living an active life and keeping himself busy with projects like finishing his daughter’s basement.
“Sometimes I can’t believe it,” Garnier says. “I didn’t think I was going to make it. Now I’m getting up on ladders, helping to build barns. I do it all.”
Best of all, his granddaughter, a student at St. Mary’s University in Halifax, N.S., chose him for a class assignment: “My Hero”.
Credit: www.newscanada.com
(ARA) – Getting the flu can have serious consequences, especially for children. Every year, children in the United States get extremely ill and some die from influenza (“the flu”) and its complications. Richard Kanowitz knows this all too well — he and his wife Alissa lost their 4-year-old daughter, Amanda, to the flu four years [...]
Of the 10 million Americans with osteoporosis, 80 percent are women, and having a mother with osteoporosis puts a daughter particularly at risk for fractures.
Priscilla Turner, 67, of Memphis, Tenn., knows this risk all too well. Her 90-year-old mother, Jewell Fondren, suffers from osteoporosis (a disease that causes bone to become weak and susceptible to [...]