Ben Brager doesn’t look sick, but he is.

Even when he is not ill, he is still sick. Brager, 24, has two autoimmune disorders, and he will live forever with the threat of having colds that leave him bedridden for weeks, joint pain and occasional to regular dialysis.

Good luck getting him to offer up his life story. He’d much rather talk about upcoming plans for a lingcod fishing trip to the San Juan Islands or his September wedding.

The Freeland man who was born and raised on South Whidbey is back home now. Living with granulomatosis with polyganiitis, an autoimmune attack and inflammation of blood vessels, means that his body is attacking itself. In Brager’s case, it has gone after his kidneys and his joints.

Most of his life Brager has had the disorder. He was diagnosed at 12 years old, a terrifying experience for him and his whole family. He ended up leaving the school district to be home schooled, and eventually graduated as salutatorian.

“He was fine one day, seemed to have the flu for four days until he had a blood draw and it showed kidney failure,” said his mother, Pam Brager.

Brager, a lifelong outdoorsman who favors hunting and fishing (the real fishing, he jokes, not sitting in a boat drinking), studied marine fisheries and eventually entered the world of boat building.

But getting sick regularly affected his attendance and he left his job out of respect for the company.

“I felt like I was being a burden more than an asset,” he said. 

“Before, you could start missing a couple days of school,” he added. “Now, you miss a couple days of work and can’t keep a job.”

Since leaving his job and moving home in February, he’s able to be on his parents’ insurance plan. That helps cover some of the bills for his monthly doctor and specialist visits and the 15 prescriptions he takes, but even with just the co-pays, the costs are adding up.

As a means of lessening the burden, his family set up a GoFundMe account with a goal of $50,000. The amount, Pam Brager said, is a rough estimate based on conversations she’s had with her insurance company and from research that would pay for a kidney transplant and recovery. To date, $16,045 has been raised in 14 days. Other people have volunteered to be tested as a possible kidney donor, though the family has high hopes that his father, Todd Brager, will be a candidate.

“It’s a very humbling experience,” Ben Brager said. “I’m not a big people person.”

The current amount raised online would have covered the cost of his most recent biopsy, he said.

On the website, two pictures show one of the side effects of a medication he takes. It results in a “moonface” because of the swelling of tissue, but taking the drug was never really a question for him.

“Without it, I’d be dead. You take what you can get,” he said.

Brager, an optimist, said he hardly worries about the procedures, the fundraiser, or much else. Why would he? He said his mom and fiancee do all the worrying for him while he’s busy living his life.

“It’s all gonna work out in the end,” he said.