Brandon Blevins Family Assistance

Brandon Blevins is an Air Force Veteran who served from April 2007 until April 2013.  During that time he was stationed at F. E. Warren AFB in Cheyenne, Wy where he served as a Security Forces Member.  While stationed at F. E. Warren he deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom and then decided to separate Honorably after the end of his contract. During Father’s Day in 2018, Brandon noticed he had no voice, like laryngitis. He wasn’t too concerned at the time as that could happen to any of us. But he had been also having breathing problems, which he thought was most likely asthma but it seemed much worse. a couple of weeks went by and still no voice, Brandon went to his primary provider, in turn, he was referred to an ear nose and throat surgeon for evaluation. The Doctor did a ct scan and also put a scope down his throat to look at his trachea. She stated his trachea area was so swollen she couldn’t get her camera down his airway to look. She placed an urgent referral to an even more advanced head and neck surgeon. Within 2 days, the new doctor was seeing Brandon. He discovered that tissue was growing in his airway and almost completely shut off anyway to breathe. This doctor saw him on a Thursday and scheduled an emergency surgery for Monday. Unheard of! He performed surgery with a team of 20, due to the dangers of taking biopsies of Brandon’s trachea, worried his airway could collapse and also due to this being what the Doctor seemed to be a Rare disease that most surgeons rarely see. The surgeon reviewed the photos he had taken after surgery with us. It was indeed worrisome. He could not believe that Brandon had been walking around not only with not being able to breathe through his nose, but one of the two airways was nearly closed with tissue growing over it.  The surgeon was very concerned, in fact, disturbed. He felt in his gut that this was looking like an autoimmune disease, Wegener's disease, but will run the pathology report and see what we come up with.  I started researching this disease and had a complete meltdown. This was bad news! We decided to be positive, let’s wait for the results. Brandon was referred to a rheumatologist, who specializes in autoimmune disorders, like Wegener's and ultimately diagnosed him with the Wegener’s Auto Immune Disease.  The two doctors have tried many medications, antibiotics, steroids, inhalers, with no change. Brandons airway almost closed again due to the disease and had his second surgery on April 9th. His surgeon was upset that not only was the previous surgery not healing, but this disease is heading towards his lungs. It’s worsened. Currently since nothing else has been able to help, they have put Brandon on a weekly infusion of chemotherapy, to deplete his body and hopefully kill whatever is going on with his body.  He takes it every Friday and it drains his body both physically and emotionally.  The Doctors want to keep him on chemotherapy and hope that it helps put the disease into remission, as they are almost out of answers on how to defeat this rare disease. At anytime his airway can close and Brandon could choke to death. Also it can go to the lungs and essentially do the same thing. We are very worried but Brandon has been trying to keep positive throughout it all. Brandon is a wonderful father to 5 lovely children, Itzel, Eduardo, Sadie, Aaliyah and newly born Jaden. He is married to Berenice who has been his biggest support during this tough time.  Our family is very close and we are doing everything we can for them, but this disease is bigger than us, he needs help so he can focus on the long road before him. He needs support during this treatment and not worry about the financial crisis they are in. He has tried to keep a positive outlook during this time but as we all know, when facing something like this it’s up to us to let him know how we feel. Please do everything you can, he’s a Veteran and deserves as much help out there that he can get.