Gary Woolard:
CLASS OF 1971
Bentley High SchoolClass of 1971
Livonia, MI
Gary's Story
Life
Hello,
First of all I should say that I'am sorry to Paul Kuczwara my high school friend that I haven't stayed in touch over these years. Paul and myself were in the class of 1971 who don't know that.
After high school I went into the U.S. Air Force in June 1973. I was assigned four different places, three in the United States and the fourth overseas in the Philippines. My third assigned location was in Michigan at Wurtsmith A.F.B by Oscoda, Michigan. It was at base where I met my wife Kathy and got married there. This was May 1977 that we got married on the base chapel. The last base that I went to was Sheppard A.F.B.; Witchta Falls, Texas. It was at base our only "child", Reba was born at the base hospital. I got out of the USAF in May 1979 in moved to the Grand Rapids, Michigan area. We had been in this area ever since. Over the years I've worked in factory, warehouse, & retail store of different kinds of work.
Late spring of 2001, my brother Dale who is also an graduate of Bentley H.S. class of 1973, asked me to do bone marrow testing for him. He has B-Cell Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma the cancer of the lymph nodes system of the body. I went down to Harper Hospital in Detroit that August 2001 for this testing. Eight days later an nurse called me up and said, "Gary you need a Ct Scan on your lungs because the x-rays on you for this testing showed lesions in your lungs". Dale in up using bone marrow from himself and they purged this and replied back to him and has been in remission since then. I had to resolve health insurance issues before finding out what was going on in my lungs. I was entitled to care from the State of Michigan and well as from the Veterans' Adimistration. I won't get into that mess other than I getting health care through the V.A. since Aug 2002. Anyway it took five months to diagnois of what this that came upon myself with no prior symptoms. It is called Sarcoidosis and is nothing to with this SARS thing around the world now.
To me Mu...Expand for more
ltiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, and this Sarcoidosis have 4/5 symptoms of three the same. However they are different in their own each way. I have positive Pulmonary (lung) Sarcoidosis going on and circumstancially the pain in my muscles, bones, and nerve damage called Perherial Neuropathy is all from this Sarcoidosis. 30% of people who get Sarcoidosis get a varied form of disability and 5% of this die from it. More body "systems" involved makes to prognois that much more poorer. There is only about 4/5 whites or causican people in 100,000 in the U.S.A. that are diagnois of neurological involvement of this called Neurosarcoidosis. This is the major form of this that causes disabilty and the second one to die from it next to lung failure from Sarcoidosis. Seizures, strokes, & heartattacks are the worst that happen in neuro sense. This disease affects everyone different to some extent I mean there is no standard of the different symptoms it is going to affect a person. For about five months I been e-mailing with a Neurosarcoidosis support group and this has helped me in this regard. This lady that had been logging on with this support group, her husband passed away two weeks ago this super bowl sunday from Sarcoidosis. Your heart just goes out to these people that have been having this disease longer than I have or worst symptoms than myself. Some have to take Morphine which is an Addictive Narcotic Painkiller because their pain is so bad now.
It has been three years of having this Sarcoidosis now as of Jan. 24, 2005. What is going to happen to me is any one's guess but the worse is very bleak. Additional to this, I have a 24year history of having Peptic Ulcer Disease which is an extreme high risk of getting one of the various kinds of Stomach Cancers just in this in itself separately from Sarcoidosis. Late this past summer I did have sucidal thoughts because of this medcial crap and other things too. But this isn't the case no more.
Well bye for now,
Gary
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