News
Len Geiger continues to touch lives as a patient advocate
INDIANA, PA—So this one time a guy by the name of Len Geiger – 49, lives in Jacksonville, Fla. – meets his parents to celebrate his 35th birthday. When the celebrating was done, Geiger tries to walk his mom and dad across the parking lot to their car.
He couldn’t. He. Couldn’t. Catch. His. Breath.
He leaned against a car, sucking wind and shaking like a leaf. He had been having some breathing trouble before, though nothing doctors told him to be overly concerned about. But this just wasn’t right, he thought.
So then he went to a doctor, a good one. He asked that every available test be run. They were. This was in 1994.
And then one day after the tests were all done, the doctor tells him he has this genetic disorder called AAT Deficiency, or genetic emphysema. People with this disease, their livers don’t make enough of an enzyme that protects the lungs from the immune system. About 100,000 Americans have it.
