Career in Firefighting
“Loved Every Minute of It”
I really wanted to be a police officer and just at the whim decided not to. I decided to be a fireman. So I got hired in 1991 at 24 years old. I went through the academy and I worked through the ranks. I was a firefighter EMT for 12 and a half years.
After I was a firefighter for 12 and a half years (that’s a long time being the grunt on the truck), I became a fire equipment operator. Sometimes they call ’em “lieutenants”. So I drove a fire unit for about six years and then became a fire captain. I still stayed on the truck and went through the course of fire suppression.
My next promotion was a district chief, and then I became division chief of that whole division of five trucks and loved it. I worked in downtown Baton Rouge at a station that used to be called Central Plex, but now it’s the River Center.
My career in firefighting lasted for 32 years with a full retirement.
Source of Asbestos Exposure
“Thought It Was All Due to the Exposure as a Firefighter”
My dad worked in the industrial field his whole career. He worked in paper mills and in plants. He would bring home asbestos on his work clothes. It was a secondary exposure to me as I was young growing up.
I played a lot of sports during certain seasons. Fall was football, then you had basketball, then you had baseball. My dad would always bring me to practice. He never missed. As soon as he got off work, he came home and we jumped in the car and went to my practice. We’d always be close – I would ride next to him with my arm around him.
He did not know anything about asbestos on his clothes.
Treatment for Mesothelioma
“Just Want to Come Home and Sleep”
For the cancer, I did immunotherapy for several months. My blood work wasn’t showing any signs of working. They swapped to another drug where I did that for a while.
Then I tried two separate chemo pills and those were rough. I probably could only do 20 days of the first chemo pill, and then I was bedridden. For the second chemo pill, they lowered the dose and swapped the med. I did 36 days of that one. I was doing good on this last one, but they swapped it because my blood and all my levels weren’t doing good.
They just put me on another one. And I’ve been in bed for two weeks. I just want to come home and sleep. And on the weekend, that’s all I’ve been doing is sleeping from morning until the next day.
Legal Help
“Everything Was Extremely Easy”
When we got the law firm Baron and Budd involved, things started moving really fast, faster than I thought that it would’ve went. I’ve never been involved in anything like this, but they jumped on everything and got things done.
Nothing was ever interrupted with my treatments. Any time that we met or did a consultation or anything like that, it was always on my terms. If I had to cancel, no big deal. We would meet the next day or the next week – I would set the time. It wasn’t a hassle. I enjoyed all the colleagues as well.
All the members of Baron and Budd have been super professional. You can tell that they knew what they were doing. They talked in layman’s terms for me so that I could understand what was going on. They didn’t speak above me, and if I didn’t understand anything, they explained everything to me. It was extremely easy. It really was.
The firm always kept us in the loop. “Okay, we’re thinking about this amount, so what do you think about this?” It never felt like it was their decision. I would ask them what their opinion was and how they felt about the amount.
Advice for Others
“Find a Firm As Soon as Possible”
If I come across anyone being diagnosed with mesothelioma or some other family member or a friend, I would highly recommend them to find a firm as soon as possible. I would recommend Baron and Budd because they take care of business. They handled my situation as good as the situation could be handled.
