Mea Lazy

I'm lazy.

I should have added much information to this, but I have been negligent. Mea culpa.

We went to Philadelphia this weekend for a Pulmonary Hypertension symposium. Lots of docs and researchers talking about where treatment is going and what we can expect.

We stayed in a very nice little Hilton in a neighborhood with which I was not familiar, near St Joseph University. Nice restaurant, not grossly overpriced, nice paneled bar with overstuffed leather armchairs.

I had some friends who also attended. Some I had met in the flesh before, some only online. All were delightful, which is kind of a bonus because I have found that meeting folks with whom you have only corresponded is sometimes a, well, disappointment. They write better than they are.

Me, I write how I are.

One of the things that is increasing apparent about this disease is that there aren't any guarantees. I'm feeling great now, and taking as much advantage of that as I can, but the meds can quit working, or the disease can be accelerated by any number of things. My chances are better because the treatment is better. A woman died this weekend, five years after diagnosis, and her doctor had chosen to put her on only one medication, changing it too late for there to be much improvement. When she was diagnosed, there were only two treatments, both of them intravenous infusions. Now we have three pills and an inhaled treatment, in addition to the infusions.

Currently the most common treatment is a cocktail of several of the available treatments, adjusting the dosages to minimize the side effects, but jacking the dosage up as high as is tolerable to minimize the symptoms. They think that by this time next year, there may be as many as five new treatments. And in Canada, they're starting a stem cell infusion clinical trial this year.

The trick is staying alive long enough to get a cure...