Quick admission

The Royal Wedding bank holiday weekend, a bright, sunny and beautiful event that got everyone in a good mood, shame the same couldn't be said for my little puffers. May 29th saw me struggling to move and after snoozing on the sofa all day I had mum call the ward for advice. They didn't really have any suggestions other than go in and get checked over because the previous day I'd had clinic and my IV antibiotics had been changed. So I agreed, I was fit for nothing at home anyway. I went in that night and had the usual checks, xray and bloods and after an extra shot of steroids managed to get some sleep.
For the last couple of weeks now in clinic, it was actually spotted in A&E when I went in with my port blockage it was noticed that my heartrate and diastolic blood pressure we're raised. I had had a chat to my doctor about it in clinic and we decided to up my diltiazem (calcium channel blocker) a drug used to bring down blood pressure as I was only on a small dose. When I was admitted to the ward my heart rate was around 140bpm the typical healthy resting heart rate in a healthy adult is 60-80bpm. Now I'm not your average healthy adult but having a heart rate that high does not feel nice. And my diastolic blood pressure was also raised, all in all my heart was working hard. I saw the doctors properly on the Sunday and they were pretty concerned and eager to get on top of this and so they began to play around with my drugs. That Tuesday it was agreed that I did have some Pulmonary Hypertension (PH) now, my heart is struggling under the pressure from my lungs. My heart has done so well to get me as far as it has and come through what it has, its unsurprising it's now struggling. I've been started on a couple of drugs, Ivabradine, used to bring down heart rate and yes as you can see from the picture a small dose of Viagra also known as Sildenafil.This drug works by relaxing the arteries thus reducing the work load for the right ventricle in the heart. It's going to be a case of fine tuning drugs now but PH is manageable and their are alot of treatment options available.
Anything but ordinary!