Billie Jensen’s PH Story
Hi my name is Billie Jensen. I am 35 years old and was diagnosed 3 years ago at age 32 and this is my Pulmonary Hypertension Story.
It all started at first when I went for a bike ride and couldn’t make it around my block. My sides started hurting, I couldn’t breathe I had to get off my bike and sit on the curb and wait for my husband to ride his bike back home to get the pickup and come get me.
I felt horrible and thought I was terribly out of shape. I mean what else would you think was happening right?
So, some time went on and I started getting out of breath just sitting and tying my shoe laces. And I worked at a retread plant (very physical) hard work working with Truck Tires.
Well, one day I was cleaning up for lunch break and all of a sudden I got very dizzy, could not speak – just felt horrible and like I was not in control of myself. This lasted about 4 minutes and once I sat down and took some deep breaths it all cleared up.
That’s when I really knew I had something going on with me.
I went to see my Doctor and told her and she set me up an appointment with a heart doctor. First the heart doctor said everything looked fine and I was too young for heart problems but, to be on safe side he was going to do an echo and have my Pulmonary doctor take a look the next week for my appointment with him.
Well, the echo showed everything perfectly for my Pulmonary Hypertension Doctor he was able to see I had very high pressures in my lungs of 113/125. A week before all this I was also put on 15 liters of oxygen while walking and 10 liters while resting 24/7
The Pulmonary doctor did RHC and then put me on 3 PH drugs IV Veletri, Adcirca and Opsumit. I went to Rehab and it helped a lot. 3 months later my pressures were down to 79 and my oxygen needs went down to only needing oxygen for walking far distance and at night at 2 liters.
3 years later I just now got put on IV Remodulin, still on The Adcirca and Opsumit pressures still in the 70s but, that’s good for me.
My doctor, along with Veletri saved my life. The results of the RHC showed the cause of my PH to be caused by an ASD from birth no one knew about and over the years got bigger and caused Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension. And this is my Pulmonary Hypertension Story.
