Carla Scruggs

 Peripartum Cardiomyopathy Support Network

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http://www.taylordailypress.net/articles/2003/01/24/news/features/news03.txt
Hello everyone.
I'm the oddball on the board, but I have found such love and support from these wonderful women and Dr. Fett.
Here's my story:
I grew up in a wonderful, loving Baptist family with parents that have now been married 39 years. So, naturally, I thought the same would happen for me. Well, by 31, I still hadn't married. All through the years, I watched my friends get married, have babies, and then, most of them got divorced. I wondered......was that wonderful man out there. Well, on Y2K, New Year's Eve 1999, I found him.

We started dating, and dated for 3 years before the ring came along. Like me, he'd waited a long time and wanted to be sure. We immediately started planning the wedding and, since I was 34, started talking about how we eeded to probably start trying for a baby shortly after we were married (as 'd be 35). I'd had high blood pressure for years (it's all over my family) nd started counseling with my PCP to find a "safe" BP medication. Well, after taking any new, safer medication.....I'd get sick. I'd end up in the ER with shortness of breath; i.e., asthma symptoms.....which were usually side effects of the safer beta blockers. So, everytime, he'd put me back on the Vasoretic which I'd been on forever. I decided to just concentrate on
enjoying planning the wedding and honeymoon. Four months after we were married, I again went to this PCP. After the same thing happened again, he basically threw his hands up and said "Hmmm, don't get pregnant and stay on this medicine", without ANY explanation as to why. Well, I blew up and ended up in an Internist office the next week as I couldn't, and WOULDN'T accept this. She slowly worked with me.....weening me from one med to the other.....without any problems. On December 15, 2003, she said, "Everything looks great, you can start trying"!!!! Well, my hubby still wasn't ready....and I was so upset. But, God knows what he's doing....and my hubby most definitely had the right instinct, and probably saved my life.

On January 10, 2004......I woke up sicker than ever. Couldn't breath, could barely tell where my ankles were and my BP was 180/120!!!! I ended up in the ER. Five days later, after many tests and an Echocardiogram, I heard the words that changed my life forever......"You have Cardiomyopathy, probably caused by a virus. Youe EF is 25%, and you CAN'T HAVE CHILDREN"! I cried
for a whole week. I tried to get my hands on any information I could find and, everywhere I turned, all I could find was 5-10 year lifespan. In fact, I ended up paying another co-pay, just so I could go back to the Cardiologist to have him explain it all over to me, because I didn't hear anything he said but "you're going to die and leave your new husband". Of course, he NEVER really said any of that. He told me that we could treat this and I would live a long, normal life. However, over the past year, I've felt FEAR, anger, depression, bitterness, questioned God.....you name it.

So.....I'm now with one of the best doctors at the Heart Hospital of Austin. I'll have my next echo in a couple of weeks. The last one in July still showed an EF of 25%. I take Coreg, Vasotec, Digoxin, Potassium, Spironolactone, Protonix, Prozac, CoQ10, and Fish Oil. I have an "old person's pillbox and I'm the "youngest one" in the waiting room!!!! My docs have all recommended that I get a tubal......but we're still praying for a miracle.

I know my disease is different......but the treatments, fears, and questions are all the same. And, I love being a part of this group.

May God continue to bless and heal each of you!
Carla