Tira's Photos

Hi, I am new here not sure if this is where I introduce myself but here goes my story. I was having bad shortness of breath off and on for a few years I have copd so the Dr. always said that was what my problem was. Then it got to the point I would get out of breath just standing up so I went back to my Dr. he did test after test he thought I had cancer cause the lymph nodes in my lungs were very enlarged. I was sent for test after test then a biopsy found out I have a rare disease that affects the lymph nodes and makes them enlarged. Its calles follicular dysplasia. So, after 8 months of testing for cancer he decided to look better at my heart. Test after test revealed severe regurgitation in mitral valve. I soon had ohs where I was given a new valve. This was a nightmare for me. During surgery there was complications my diaphragm got squished which in turn led to my lungs failing. I spent 6 weeks in icu on a ventilator and an additional 4 weeks on a trache in a lung specialty hospital. But it didn't end there my entire body shut down. I went into kidney failure and had to be put on dialysis, my pancreas shut down and I became insulin dependant, my colon shut down had to have a decompression bag, I got pnemonia twice, afib over and over and had 2 blood transfusions. As you can imagine I wasn't expected to live. It was also high covid time so I got no visitors. By the grace of God and lots and lots of prayers I pulled through. After 75 days in the hospital I was sent home in a wheelchair on oxygen 24/7 and using a nebulizer 3 times a day. After returning home I soon began to hallucinate bad my husband took me to the hospital and I spent more time in the hospital 3 times. What was discovered was I had high C02 levels which caused me to hallucinate so I had to be put on a bipap machine. I now have to use it every night. Due to the damage to my diaphragm it resulted in me not being able to take in deep enough breaths which caused my C02 levels to go high. On July 30th I celebrated my 1 year. It took me 9 months before I could work again but I am finally almost 100% recovered. I am lucky I have an amazing support group and God on my side. I apologize for such a long post if you read all the way through thank you and if your waiting for surgery don't let my journey scare you as I am a very very very rare case. Best of luck to everybody in there heart journey.