Introduction...hello group...

June 17, 2006

My name is KAtG..and life changed for me and my husband forever on MAy

4th 2006...after and abnormal chest x-ray and CT scan our local MD

sent Matt onto a pulmo...our local MD has been treating MAtt for

asthma and maybe COPD for quite awhile...But MAtt breathlessness has

worsen over the past year and a half..and has always had a dry,

nonproductive cough but we thought it was from allergies....

I was afraid of lung cancer but our local MD told me that he did not

see a mass and thought it was COPD but to go onto the pulmo

anyway...Sometimes I wish we hadn't...

After PFTs and looking at the x-rays and cat scans...the pulmo came in

and told us that MAtt had pulmonary fibrosis-no treatment and

terminal...usually 3 to 5 years after diagnoses...He also stated that

lung transplants were expensive and there really was no quality of

life afterward...He told MAtt to go home and follow up in 6 months..

I felt like I had been stabbed in the heart....I have cried and cried

and had one panic attack after another...

We had a second opinion at another local pulmongist...He looked at the

CT scan..(not HRCT) and said it was pobbily fibrosis and showed us the

CT scans...He is nice but seems rather lost at what to do...He has

recommended a hospital in St. Louis -Jewish, that specializes in

ILDs...ofcorse we are 500 miles away but that is the closest there is...

He has explained VATS-but it sounds risky for someone with IFP...

Meanwhile he is treating MAtt with Immuran and predisone..hoping that

this might be HP....and that it will stop it...Also MAtt is suppose to

be boderline RA...so we are tring to get an appointment with a rhemy,

maybe the scarring is due to RA and if so maybe the treatment with

Embrel.....

Does life ever get back ontrack...do you ever feel happiness again???

I stay on the verge of tears most of the time...

MAtt is 51...KAtG

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