Denny Raser Beef & Beer

This is my dad, Denny Raser, just six years ago when he was still very active and doing what he loves.  Since then he has experienced the following issues:

In 2005, my dad contracted Lyme's disease, and was given a false negative result to the teiter test.  It went untreated for months until he finally received a positive result which enabled him to get the antibiotics he needed.  In 2006, my dad had a heart attack and the trauma of the heart attack caused him to develop diabetes.  The diabetes caused him to experience loss of kidney function.  His poor kidneys were already damaged in a very serious accident that Dad had been in, in 1980. 

In 2007, Dad continued to decline, developing an unknown disease that would result in several hospital visits and treatments for things that he "might have".  Eventually, he was diagnosed with a disease similar to Wegener's Disease.  A doctor told us it was a powerful auto-immune disease that was attacking Dad's internal organs.  During this time we were told he had an infection in the wall of his heart, lung cancer, and pneumonia, only to find out all of this was incorrect.  In the end, Dad was given a year's worth of an old cancer drug, Cytoxin which eventually beat his auto immune disease into remission enough that long term steroids would keep it at bay.

In 2008, Dad developed an ulcer on one of his toes and had to have part of his toe amputated due to his diabetes and started to develop serious edema due to his damaged kidneys.  He was also starting to experience difficulty walking because of pain in his lower back.

In 2009, 2010 & 2011 there were three very complicated back surgeries, compounded by a vicious bout of shingles that hospitalized him for over a month.  His auto-immune disease caused an infection to eat away at the vertebrae in his back.  Currently Dad is in a wheel chair and has just had another back surgery.  At the time that I am writing this he is in the hospital in Philly recuperating from being cut from shoulder blade to lower back.  Hopefully he will be transferred shortly to their state of the art rehab facility where he will begin the process of learning to walk all over again.