Bill Lickman - phaware® interview 287

Pulmonary Hypertension patient and military veteran, Bill Lickman discusses his road to diagnosis and the importance of great caregiver support.

My name is Bill Lickman. I'm a pulmonary hypertension patient.

I was stationed military duty in the South and Mississippi, and I was already to get out and be redeployed back home. I was having some issues, so I figured I'd go into the doctors and check on what was going on. I was having trouble breathing and they were treating me for asthma and they couldn't find anything wrong.

My late wife, who was a nurse practitioner said, "Have them check your heart." So they did this new procedure, [an echocardiogram], on me and saw that my right heart was enlarged. They did our right heart catheterization and they had to stop the procedure, because my pressure was so high, it was in the 90s. That's how they diagnosed me with PH.

This was in November of 2006. Once I demobilized back to Michigan, I was in contact with the University of Michigan, with Dr. Valerie McLaughlin. She's one of the best, if not, in Michigan, in the whole country. From there, she wanted to put me on intravenous medication. I kind of hesitated at it, because I was active and everything else, and I wouldn't be able to do much of anything.

So I've been on oral drugs. I started out with just Tracleer. I went back for a six month appointment and she put me on Revatio, also. I was on that until about a year ago, and she added Uptravi to that list of medicines. I'm on, basically, three drugs right now.

I got involved with support groups. They've helped a lot in the answering a lot of questions, because basically I guess I was kind of in denial, even though I'm doing very well. I'm still active. I golf three times a week. I chop wood. We burn wood in the wintertime. I got an outdoor boiler, so I saw wood up.

We go to Colorado. We go to Denver. The first time we talked to Dr. McLaughlin [about it], she said, "Can't you think of any place else to go to other than Denver?" Because of the altitude. We've gone up into the Rockies. We've gone over 9,000 feet in altitude, and it really doesn't affect me that much that I notice. I don't have trouble breathing or anything. When I go to see Dr. McLaughlin, she says, "You're the healthiest person I see."

I would stress, do you want to do. Know your limits on what you can do, and do the best that you can with it. There's life out there, even with PH. If you have a dream, do it to the best of your ability. Go with your limits. Go with your gut feeling. If it feels rough on you, stop. If it feels good, keep doing it. Push yourself.

It helps have a really good caretaker and I've got a real good one. She backs me on the things that I do. She's good support. When she tells me, "You're going too far." I'll listen to her. We'll come to a good compromise. She knows what I can do and what I can't do. She's just looking out for my wellbeing.

I'm Bill Lickman, and I'm aware that I'm rare.

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