Barbara describes how a simple test confirmed severe COPD and heart failure.

Transcript

The only – the only time that I could tell you that I was really disappointed was right before I was diagnosed. When I went to my GP and I said, ‘You know something is going on. My heart is pounding out of my chest. I can’t walk more than half a block without stopping’ and blah, blah, blah, and he looked at me like I had three holes in my head.  Now I had had two bouts of pneumonia, two bouts of pleurisy in the last two years and I was a pack a day smoker, so those are the indications that we know now that person should have a spirometry, and when I asked for it my family doctor thought I was playing the system.  Finally, he relented and let me go for the spirometry test which is an easy, easy, inexpensive test and it came back that I had severe COPD and that I had already started to cause heart failure. It had already started causing heart damage, so I was really disappointed with that doctor. And I soon found out that I could be taken care of by my – between my cardiologist and my pulmonary doctor without having to see him too much, so he’s since retired.

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