DAVIE, Fla. – Pulmonary hypertension was robbing Peggy Notman of her life, one breath at a time.
It started in her early sixties when she developed a blood clot in her lung after hip replacement surgery eight years ago.
"It was downhill from then on," she said. "I was diagnosed with all the problems a year later."
In 2017 Doctor Jinesh Mehta at Cleveland Clinic Florida found several clots in her lungs, the result of a rare condition, chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension or CTPH.
"You get it from persistent blood clots that don't go away," said Dr. Mehta.
Because of her underlying health issues, Peggy didn't qualify for a complex surgical procedure that could cure the disease, but she was a candidate for a new procedure called a balloon pulmonary angioplasty performed by doctors at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.
"This has been done in the heart for many years where you open up the heart with a balloon angioplasty, but not so much in the lungs so this is new for the lung not to many centers are doing this is, if you will on the cutting edge of treatments," said Dr. Mehta.
Said Peggy: "They gave me the option of dying within a year or having the procedure, so my husband and I looked at each other and said lets go for it and I had ten procedures."
Peggy no longer needs oxygen 24-7; only when she's active.
"And you'd be surprised what they consider active," she said. "Making the bed is active, taking a shower is active going for walks is active which naturally it would be so I do everything I can like that on oxygen."
While the procedure may not be a cure, it's given Peggy hope.
"The doctors were so thrilled at how successful it was that they guaranteed me, when I got up there, that instead of one year I'd have at least five and maybe more so it's working out great," she said.
If you’ve been diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension or a lung clot, ask your doctor if you’re a candidate for a special scan to check for the possibility of chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension.