Speaking as a patient...
I have lived with pulmonary hypertension for over
20 years. In the early 1980s, PH was a diagnosis of despair.
Most physicians knew little or nothing about the disease and
there was no patients’ organization. Today many medical
and surgical treatments are available that can prolong lives,
and patients have many easy ways to reach out to one another.
PHA has made a huge difference in the progression of this illness
by connecting the dots. This organization – our organization – has
brought together patients, family members and medical professionals,
creating a coordinated assault on PH. Over the last two years,
I have watched as services to each of these constituencies have
been sharpened…for the benefit of all.
From a quarterly medical journal that puts pulmonary hypertension
in front of the entire community of cardiologists, pulmonologists
and rheumatologists in the U.S., to a fast-growing network of
support groups that will soon be in all fifty states, to the
nurturing of a new international PH movement, to sponsoring medical
research, PHA is making a visible and substantial difference
in patients’ lives.
As the volunteer author of Pulmonary Hypertension: A Patients
Survival Guide and a PHA board member, I know how much PHA deserves
and needs our support. PHA is our vehicle to make positive change.
PHA is there for us. It supports us. I encourage you to be as
generous as possible in supporting PHA.
Gail Boyer Hayes
2004 Annual Report (
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