My Wife, My Life....

Normally, the spring would be my peak geocaching and photography time. This spring has not been very fruitful in either area for me. Much more important matters have had my attention this spring. My wife has been ill for quite some time now. She has encountered various issues over the past several years and we were never able to pinpoint the problem. This spring has been especially rough for her. She has spent about five weeks out of the last seven hospitalized for various reasons. Most recently, she began having severe difficulty breathing one day while I was at work. She called me in a panic because she could not get her breath. My wife is usually very healthy. She is 44 years old, active, and eats very healthy so these issues have been a bit of a mystery. With this latest incident, I rushed home after calling 911 to find them loading her into the ambulance. She was in pretty rough shape. For some reason, they decided to do an echocardiogram at the hospital. To make a long story short, we found the problem that had been eluding us.

My wife was diagnosed with Primary Pulmonary Hypertension (PPH). She has now been in the hospital for six days and spent the last 3 in CICU. She has significant damage to her heart and her pulmonary pressure is 100mm or five time what it should be. They have ran a multitude of test and scans and cannot figure out why she has this. Unfortunately, in some cases, they do not discover the cause. It just is what it is. Our options are pretty limited at this point. There are things they can do to lower the pressure and slow down the damage. If they can get her pressure below 70mm, she would be eligible for a heart-lung transplant but lowering it 30 points is asking a lot. The average survival is 2.8 years but they say her damage is pretty advanced already. Mostly, I am just in shock and kind of numb. We've been married 17 years and I sure expected many more to come. Since I have MS and have never been the most healthy person, I never even considered the possibility that I might outlive her. I do know that this is not a death sentence and that we can have a positive outcome, though. It is just that as test after test and time goes by, the odds are not in our favor. My wife is a fighter and she is keeping a very positive attitude. She is strong and willful. If any one can get through this, it is her.

It is ironic that just a couple of months ago, I expressed my fears here on this blog of some day losing my father. Two months later, I'm now facing this. Kinda depressing!! I've always been a pretty spiritual person with a strong belief in prayer. I find great comfort there now. I probably won't be doing a lot of caching in the near future as my focus will solely be on my wife for now. I spend a great deal of time at the hospital as I miss her terribly when I'm not there. They are taking great care of her but I can't help but worry when I am away from her.

In the mean time, find a cache for me.