JUDY PUTNAM

Putnam: Flu nearly kills Lansing man who was getting his life together

Justin Farmer's family pleads for awareness of flu vaccine as they wait for his recovery

Judy Putnam
Lansing State Journal

LANSING – Drug-free and ready to start a new job on Feb. 22, Justin Farmer felt hopeful.

Justin Farmer, in a photo taken by his father, remains in  intensive care a month after flu symptoms struck.

Farmer, 29, is a former heroin user who frequented homeless shelters. Motorists at the corner of Martin Luther King and Mount Hope may have seen him holding a sign and asking for money in the past, his family said.

That life appeared over.

Just two weeks after release from a court-ordered rehab program following a drug possession arrest, he was clean, backed by frequent required urine tests for drugs. And he had a job lined up, said Timothy Farmer, his father.

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But instead of his first day on the job making pizzas, he was on life support at Sparrow Hospital fighting to live. The next day he was flown to the University of Michigan Medical Center where he remains, a month later, in intensive care and in a medically induced coma.

The cause? The flu.

Timothy Farmer, a retired flight attendant in Lansing, said he wants to use his son’s story to encourage more people to get the flu shot. Justin's desperate fight for life could have been prevented with the vaccine.

Preventing tragedy

“If I can help educate, speaking on my son’s behalf, I don’t want to see anybody in the community to go through what my son’s going through,” he said.

He and his daughter, Kylie Garcia-Farmer, 13, were interviewed earlier this month by a Discovery Channel crew who came to the University of Michigan for a fall documentary about the seriousness of the flu.

“Young, healthy people can get critically ill from influenza.....you can die very quickly,” said Dr. Lena Napolitano, a critical care surgeon at the University of Michigan. She is caring for Justin Farmer.

She confirmed that Farmer had one of the strains of flu targeted by the flu shot. She said many people don’t realize that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now recommend everyone be immunized each year to prevent the flu. Prior to 2009, it was recommended for vulnerable people only.

A 2016 photo of Justin Farmer taken before he nearly died from the flu.

Though flu deaths are only estimated for adults, she said every season brings serious cases like Farmer’s.

Besides the vaccine, it's important to get tested for the flu, and treated with antiviral drugs, if you have symptoms, Napolitano said.

Dr. Song Yu, a Sparrow doctor who works at three urgent care clinics run by Sparrow, said it’s not too late to get a vaccine. It takes two weeks for the flu shot to become effective, but the flu season could still last for two more months.

Yu said the season started late, peaking at the end of February when Farmer got sick from it.

“I would not be surprised if we see rampant flu-like symptoms even into May or June,” he said.

The flu nearly killed Farmer. He suffered from pneumonia, kidney failure, septic shock and heart failure. He spent nearly a month on life support, kept alive with a heart-lung machine.

“He is markedly improved from where he was, but he’s still in the intensive care unit and still on a breathing machine,” Napolitano said in a phone interview Thursday.

Though Justin Farmer has health insurance through Medicaid, his uncle has started a GoFundMe account seeking donations to help the family deal with gas and other travel expenses. He has a long recovery ahead.

He sought treatment

Timothy Farmer, who was named his son's legal guardian, said Justin is at risk of losing some of his toes and of suffering brain and heart damage or other complications. He recalls watching teams of doctors working on his son for hours to keep him alive at Sparrow. The team from UM took five hours to stabilize him before the flight to Ann Arbor, he said.

Farmer texted his dad the day before he was hospitalized that his chest felt like it was on fire and “it hurts to breathe, smoke, swallow, speak, drink, spit - anything involving my throat.”

He sought treatment at Sparrow’s emergency room on Feb. 20, the night before his symptoms escalated, and again at Lansing Urgent Care the morning of Feb. 21, his father said.

Timothy Farmer believes his son should have been given X-rays that may have shown the signs of pneumonia. Lansing Urgent Care diagnosed him with Type-A flu and prescribed anti-viral drugs, according to records.

Before he could fill the prescriptions, he fell asleep, waking hot and delirious. His roommate drove him to Sparrow emergency, 24 hours after he first sought help there, Timothy Farmer said. He was admitted and his condition rapidly worsened.

Spokespeople for Sparrow Hospital and Lansing Urgent Care declined to speak about Farmer’s care, citing patient privacy law.

Despite his history with drugs, Farmer’s family is close to him and supports him. His half-sister, Kylie, describes him as loving, kind and joyful.

Timothy Farmer said his son, a 2006 graduate of Everett High School, was motivated to kick drugs after several overdose deaths of friends. He completed residential treatment at Holden House and had a roommate he met at the program. He was doing well, making the timing of his terrible illness hard to bear, his father said.

“He battled his addiction so hard,” he said.

Judy Putnam is a columnist with the Lansing State Journal. Contact her at (517) 267-1304 or at jputnam@lsj.com. Follow her on Twitter @JudyPutnam.

To help the Farmers:

www.gofundme.com/help-justin-and-family