Life After 60?

I wonder why my life has gotten so interesting since I turned....well actually, I guess it started after I turned 50.  My life certainly isn't what I expected for these years.  I thought the "golden years" would be restful and would be a time when I could just enjoy time with my bride of all these many years.  I am spending a lot of time with her, but it seems much of it is while she is setting in a chair while I'm laying in a hospital bed.

I've been having some struggles breathing over the past few years.  I've been poked, prodded, stabbed, invaded, placed in very tight places, given chemicals to breath, inflicted with many sensors, and more.  I've received various diagnoses including Pneumonia (never had it), Asthma (never had this one either), over exertion (now you KNOW that didn't happen).  And these same diagnoses were given over and over by several different doctors except the pulmonary specialists who claimed none of the above could be proven.  However, they didn't know either.

5 years ago I suffered a heart event and underwent an angiogram.  It indicated that I had suffered something (nobody knew what) to my heart.  The cardiologist thought then and he maintains today that it was a spasm that affected the floor of my heart.  Maybe I thanked to many people from the bottom of my heart?  At any rate there was little damage to my heart and echo cardiograms later indicated the damage had been repaired.

Two years ago I suffered an incident in Grand Junction that I was sure was a heart attack.  All the tests done at St. Mary's were inconclusive and they sent me home with medicine to cure Pneumonia because they couldn't find anything else to diagnose.  Last year I suffered a similar incident and again underwent an echo cardiogram.  Again I was told everything was normal and nothing to worry about.

Two weeks ago I went to my new doctor because my old one retired (of all the nerve) because I've been struggling with having enough air to even climb a flight of stairs.  I've been sucking on oxygen for the past year and still have trouble.  I've even had to increase the amount of oxygen so that I can stay even.  My new doctor looked over all my records and paid particular attention to the echo cardiogram done last year and said something to the effect, "it is here in black and white.  I suspect that you have Pulmonary Hypertension."

HUH?  I've never heard of such a thing.  She immediately got ahold of my cardiologist and set up an appointment with him for me to visit and schedule a angiogram, which I did last Thursday.  Well...I had the angiogram on Friday.  The results?

Dr. Radley's diagnosis is confirmed.  I have Pulmonary Hypertension. My Pulmonary Arterial blood pressure is more than double normal. In the mean time, I've been researching what that means.  I   found a whole lot of information on a website maintained by the Pulmonary Hypertension Association that taught me a whole lot, but didn't satisfy my need for information.  However, Dr. Radley thinks the information on that website is a little outdated so I continue to search out more information.

The first site I researched was not very positive on my life expectancy, but the more I researched, the more I learned and am still learning.  Pulmonary Hypertension is not curable.  It can be treated and the symptoms can be mitigated somewhat, but the end result is still heart disease, liver failure and eventually death.  Dr. Radley told me today that she expects my life expectancy to be in the 15-20 years neighborhood.

However there is more to this story.  I have problems breathing at higher altitudes.  Dr. Radley instructed me to plan on moving to a lower altitude.  I don't like the heat and it doesn't like me, so I have resisted living in St. George.  However, I may have to bite the bullet and move to the St. George area anyway in order to breath better.

...and the saga continues....