How businessman beat rare disease (From This Is Lancashire)

How businessman beat rare disease

12:13pm Friday 27th April 2007

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A BUSINESSMAN has told how he beat a rare heart and lung condition which kills almost three-quarters of sufferers before they receive treatment.

Ray Bradbury, 53, of Global Group International, Darwen, is one of the few people to lead a fit and active life after contracting the life-threatening clotting condition pulmonary hypertension.

Only about 200 people in the UK have had an operation for the condition, which is only carried out by two surgeons at Papworth Hospital, Cambridgeshire.

There was a 20 per cent chance the sales and marketing director for the office furniture company would not survive.

Ray, husband to Chrissy, 59, said: "The doctor told me there were small clots, medium clots and big clots. He said Frankly yours is a massive clot and we shouldn't be having this conversation.' "I was told at the end of my diagnosis that I had one to two years to live without any form of medication but because of the way the clot was in my lung it was possible for me to have the operation."

PH causes pressure on the heart which reduces the amount of oxygen that reaches body tissue, causing breathlessness, exhaustion and often heart failure.

Most sufferers do not know they have the condition until it is too late. It is estimated there are currently approximately 4,000 undiagnosed PH sufferers across the UK.Without the ten-hour operation last April, which involved a heart and lung bypass, Ray, who lives in the Peak District, would have survived just five to ten years with medication.

Dad to Kieran, 20, and Jamie, 13, Ray is on medication to thin his blood and must keep fit but is otherwise fully recovered.

Ray collapsed in Australia in January 2006 suffering from what doctors described as a massive' blood clot on his lung.

When he returned home after two-and-a-half months, he was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension and referred to a specialist.

Ray had felt ill for about three months and his GP diagnosed his symptoms, including blue lips, fatigue, breathlessness and a loss of appetite as a chest infection.

However, Ray had deep vein thrombosis (DVT) where a blood clot caused by frequent flying had travelled up his leg and into moved into his left lung.

It is thought the DVT caused the pulmonary hypertension.

His story has been captured on film for the charity Pulmonary Hypertension Association UK, as part of its PH Awareness Week.

The charity's helpline number is 0800 3898156. Click on the link below for their website.

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