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Birth Date Gender Heritage Nationality Alpha type Alpha gene Diagnosed Treatment Siblings Children Grandchildren |
Jeanč Marie I live in Henderson Inlet in Puget Sound Washington I am a Writer. I have a dog Madison Louise and her boyfriend Fred. My favorite colors are Red and Purple. I enjoy reading, writing, sitting on the dock of the bay. My favorite movie is Secrets of the Divine Ya Ya Sisterhood My favorite music is Country. My favorite quote is "Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want!"
6/3/05 It all seemed to start six years ago in 1999. I started getting short of breathe, and in the winter months I would get real bad sets of bronchitis, pneumonia, that type of thing. It seemed that it would knock me for such a loop that I would end up being out of work for 2 or so weeks. They finally in 2000 or 2001 diagnosed me with COPD. and put me on Albuteral and Qvar. At the time I was working for the State of Washington for a program out of the Governor's office. I was travel once or twice a month to rural communities all over the state, and also working on a project for the Inland NW, which included travel to Idaho, Montana, and Oregon. Putting meetings together, manning a web site and SQL data base, on top of all this I played golf once a week, bowled twice a week, participated in bowling tournies and had a general all round good time. But by 2002, I was just beat. I moved to Montana in Dec of 2002 and that winter seemed to be ok, without much of an episode. Although that spring I went through a radical hysterectomy. We came home in May 2003 to help take care of my terminally ill mother-in-law, who has since passed in August of 2003. Needless to say, that winter, I got hit full force with bronchitis and pneumonia and a severe lung infection. I was down and in bed for about 3 weeks. It was like some how the value was shut off to the O2 in the room when I got up to walk to the bath room. Needless to say I was in and out of the dr's office all the year of 04. They kept switching my med's, I was on antibiotics, steroids, inhalants, and the COPD kept coming up. Chest x-rays, diagnosed with spiral scoliosis of the upper thorac. My little sister even came down and helped me with my veggie garden and canning that summer because I just couldn't keep up. Under great urging, in April at the age of 47, I applied for SSD and was approved in July. So I haven't worked since Jan 2004. This past winter was a doozy for me from Nov-Mar. It was foggy, wet, damp and it played hell on my respiratory. On Feb 8th, my husband rushed me to ER, because, I couldn't breathe. They put me on O2 and kept me over night. My O2 absorption was at 83%, of course my BP was 177 over 115. The ER Dr. is the one that asked if I had ever been tested for Alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency. I went back to my dr, they referred me to one of the best pumonologists in Olympia, he had me tested and wala. I've been on Prolastin infusion since April of 2005. And that's my story. I am just grateful that I am not alone, that I have found folks that I can relate too. That I have family, friends and the strength of God to prevail.
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