Grandpa back

Hello.   I have been gone for so long I feel we need to get acquainted again.     My name is Richard (Dick) Topper, married to Margaret Topper.     We are now living in Apache Junction, Ariz.     We moved here just over six months ago.
We were out of touch this last year as a result of some medical problems involving Margaret.     She was incapacitated, and I am not aware of your knowledge of her past health problems so I will bring you up to date.
Margaret had a radical hysterectomy in 1976 (after an appendectomy and removal of a cyst from an ovary in 1959) when we were living in Mt. Vernon Illinois.    It was successful and she went twenty odd years before suffering a mild stroke in 1998 in Eldorado Springs, Mo, resulting in a minor droop of her right eye and mouth.
Spring of /99 she developed a problem of severe leg pains if she walked over 150-200 feet and after 'beaucoup' number of tests, including an angeagram they discovered four heart blockages and three leg blockages.     Seven stents were installed over a few surgeries.    
Her next angeagram was in Oklahoma in July '07, where they discovered two of the stents were damaged.     These were replaced and two more stents put in her heart.     A total of nine stents (Margaret says a cardiologist asked her once if she collected them!!!).
Things went along with no problems until late July last year, when she was given a routine angiagram to see how her stents were doing and while everything looked good there, her cardiologist noticed a possible problem in her right lung - a small (approx. 1/4 inch) nodule.     They ran tests and a biopsy (including a PET scan to determine if there was cancer anywhere else) and several options were discussed.    Chemo, radiation, or the removal of the top lobe in the right lung (approx. 1/2 of the lung in size).    We decided on the latter and this was done in October.     The operation went smoothly and everything appeared fine and Margaret was ready to come home, but she suddenly developed a heart problem.     She was in the intensive cardiac care unit and was being monitored 24/7.     Suddenly her heart rate started surging up and dropping down, twice it stopped completely and had to be restarted.     They then put in a pacemaker before she could come home.   
The doctors had told her that she would need a minimum recovery period of six to eight weeks and I got a rare chance to play housekeeper, cooking, laundry and misc. helper for a few weeks.     I don't think I did that well, but Margaret says I did.     She's too nice at times!
While we're on the subject of health, I am going to write about the old man (me) and his health.    He was very lucky (and I thank the good Lord for it).     I had no serious problems until 1991 (showed up on our 25th Anniversary trip to Europe).     Margaret made it fine, but I could not walk any distances without stopping and resting.     In Switzerland, we had taken a series of chair lifts to reach one of the highest peaks, almost 15,000 ft.    I had problem breathing and couldn't walk more than 30 feet without getting dizzy.     I would have to sit down and breathe deeply to cope.     On our return, I didn't start to feel normal until we were down to about 2,500 ft.
After returning to the States, I felt pretty good but a few months later, we went up to Shaver Lake (approx. 5,000 ft) and there I experienced similar problems.     So 'hello doctor' and I had my first cardiologist.     He came up with congestive heart failure (a diagnosis at that time which was lucky to have a five year life span).     This is when I put Margaret in charge of all our businesses, everything about the operation of the motels, and all the legal and accounting for the farms.    I myself did nothing but check on the farming operation.     We were farming 140 acres and had one full time worker and a supervisor who farmed his own 120 acres and oversaw ours.
The next problem occurred about a year later.     I was having severe chest pains and Margaret took me into emergency.     It was a gall bladder problem, but they had to delay the surgery because my pancreas had a severe problem with exceptionally high readings and they wouldn't operate until they got it under constrol.     I was in intensive care for over a week, fed intraveneously and heavily doped.    I was not allowed to consume any water, not even enough to just moisten my mouth.     It was a rough week.aty
Finally the pancreas healed and they went ahead with the surgery.    This was late on the Saturday evening (about 11pm) and the next thing I knew was about 5.30 the next morning and I was on life support, and surrounded by doctors and nurses.     They were inserting a hose down my throat into my lungs and blew water out of them.    I actually remember seeing the water spewing out.     Another five days in intensive care and it took about eight weeks of recovery at home (on oxygen most of the time).
Things went along fine for about a year and Margaret and I took a trip to Northern California and Oregon.   I had not felt good the whole trip and things got worse after we got home.     Margaet took me to emergency and I was checked into Fresno Community Hospital, this time with diabetes.    I spent the weekend there taking insulin and learning about being a diabetic and how to treat it.     I had lots of company that weekend as every nurse had to come and see the man who had walked into the hospital with a blood sugar count of over 1,000.     You're supposed to be comotose at 600!   
Margaret has been a big help on my life as a diabetic.    Watching what I eat and cooking everything without sugar.    I was also able to lose over 100 lb. and after about three years, had the numbers under control enough that I was able to go off insulin for about 8 years, when age caught up with me and the pancreas was not working as efficiently again.     The weight loss also had the added benefit of taking the strain off my heart, so I was no longer diagnosed with congestive heart failure and the abnormal size of my heart had gone down to normal.
2007 I started having the problem with my left hip.     I was 76 at this time and Margaret tells me I didn't help matters by falling off the top of the ladder at 75 while building our spec house!.     It was decided to give me a new hip, but since I had an irregular heart beat which had a tendency to 'pause', they wouldn't do the surgery without putting a pacemaker in first.     Both operations were done that summer.     The hip surgery was supposed to take about two hours, but because of the twist in my body (results of my meeting a freight train with my car back in 1950), it took three attempts with three different hips for a total of five hours before the job was done.    Recovery was somewhat painful and they were not able to do some of the therapies they wanted because of my back problem, but even with that I feel I recovered well.     But it wasn't long after this that I was feeling pretty bad again - mostly from stamina.     Margaret was concerned about me, I had no energy and according to her, no 'light' in my eyes and did not have a healthy color.     But we didn't do anything about it, but on a routine visit to our doctor and having routing blood work, they called and said I had a severe kidney problem, immmediately put me on some heavy duty medicine and I had to go in every day and draw new blood until they got the potassium level down where it was supposed to be.     I guess we should have been checking this sooner, as the doctor did tell us that I was dangerously close to having heart failure from too much potassium.   Another specialist now (nethrologist) and my kidney function was less than half of what it should have been for a man of my age.     He warned me to not have any blood drawn from my left arm, as he wanted to keep the arteries clear in case he needed to put me on dialysis in the near future.     My numbers at that time were in the high 2o's and 17 means you go on dialysis.     A change in medicine, another diet challenge for Margaret and I, and slowly but surely we got the numbers back up, so that now I am in the high 40's - only about 20% less than what a healthy 82 years old would be.
I began to feel better, people said the color was back in my face and I had some life back in my eyes.   But the energy never returned.     I could still do some things around the house, but had to do everything sitting down and even with that would have to rest a lot (even raking leaves in front of the house).
I could no longer play golf and  our financials were deteriorating and we were beginning to think that we would be better off closer to California and family where we could visit occasionally and hopefully have people visit us.     We had little or no visits during our years in the Midwest.    We made the move to Arizona, and Margaret literally had to do all the packing and moving.     I was not able to lift the boxes.
We found new doctors and specialist quite quickly and the new cardiologist felt that my lack of stamina was possibly caused by blockages.     My history of diabetes and smoking pointed to that directly, so he gave me an angeagram and was amazed to see how clean the arteries were.     He then said it had to be my lungs - after all I was a smoker for over 55 years and a heavy smoker at that.    We got a great pulmonolist (he's Margaret's now) and after full testing, he announced that I had the lungs of an 18 year old, adding that I needed to push the cardiologist as the problems was obviously there.      
But in the meantime my GP kept pushing me to go on oxygen as my blood oxygen numbers were always too low.    Stubborn as ever, I kept stating I didn't need it because the pulmonolisist said my lungs were great, but when I got to the point of having trouble walking across the room (!) I allowed Margaret to take me into the emergency.    One look at the 73% oxygen, I was literally whisked into a room, hooked up to monitors and surrounded by nurses and dctors.     I spent three days in the hospital and came out using oxygen on a 24/7 basis.     We had problems there through - they asked the question, did you smoke, and how long and how much and declared that my lungs were bad and proceeded to give me breathing treatments every few hours.     Margaret fought with them, pointing out what Parides had said (our pulmonoligist has won the award as top doctor for many years in the Phoenix area), but it wasn't until the last day that they pulled in their own pulmonologist and did their own testing.     Guess what!     Great lungs, the problem had to be the heart.     We changed cardiologists and found out from him that the first one had actually missed something on the angeagram that might have saved us some time on the PAH diagnosis, but we did end up with a specialist cardiologist who confirmed that this was the problem and started a program of recovery.     Pulmonary Aterial Hypertension, the heart doesn't supply the lungs with enough oxygen for them to do their job.
One good thing from the tests they did in this hospital trying to prove there was something wrong with the lungs, they did spot a small nodule on my right breast.     More referrals, more tests and yes it was cancer, so I had a complete masectomy.    Since then I have had another small unrelated cancer on the same side, but this time on the surface and closer to under my arm.
The PAH specialist has me on two 'miracle' medicines.     One costs $6,000 a month and the other one $18,000 per month.     Unbelievable!     Thank God for insurances, Medicare and Charities, or I would not be alive today to write this story of our medical journeys.     Even with all this help our combined medical bills is over $850 a month and takes a huge chunk out of our social security income.  It is evident that PAH had started before we left Oklahoma and the normal life expectancy is two years.    We have been old that these medicines should extend it six to eight years.     Right now they have made a huge difference in the way I feel and I actually feel overall better than I have in probably 5 or 6 years.     When I was first diagnosed, I would have to rest two or three times while doing  my abolutions in the morning and getting dressed - not the case any more.     I would literally be passing out or at best be extremely dizzy if the numbers dropped into the 70's, now I can get that low and not feel much effect.     I can work much longer and with less rests and have to admit that there have been a couple of times when I have made a mistake and not hooked myself up properly to the oxygen and gone as long as 2-1/2 hours with no oxygen at all while working outside and not felt any affect.    

There is no question in my mind that God's hand has been there throughout these recoveies, and I also feel fortunate in having some excellent doctors come into our lives.     I'll take some credit on some things in that I do take these matters seriously and have stuck to every diet they have thrown at me.     The sugar-free diet for my diabetes, the low potassium diet for my kidneys and now the diet to aid holding my blood count stable with the usage of the blood thinners, and of course thank Margaret for her efforts on this which makes it so much easier for me.     But there has been a bigger hand involved in reducing the size of my heart, reducing my insulin intake to almost nothing and still holding good numbers, to be two to three weeks away from dialysis and now being told my numbers are almost normal, and to catch cancers at their earliest of stages, and now to be feeling so good with PAH.    Life is good.