Dignity Health team helps woman with lung condition BY SARA BAIRD GUEST WRITER
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former reporter and news editor from the New Jersey area, Pat Milich was widowed at a young age with three children. She spent more than 15 years as a public information director of a large school district and later formed her own public information consulting business. After retiring, Milich relocated to Arizona in 2012 to be closer to her daughter and two of her three grandchildren. Nearly three years ago, Milich noticed she would grow short of breath while running around huffing and puffing, playing the big bad wolf with her little pigs. “I lost both of my parents to heart disease, so I thought I was having heart problems and decided it was time to visit my primary care doctor,” recalls Milich, 72. “I was prescribed some more acid reflux medication because my heartburn seemed to be worsening, and sent for a chest X-ray. I never expected what came next.” In early 2015, Milich was referred to a local pulmonologist who diagnosed her with a rare and often deadly lung condition called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. IPF is typically characterized by scarring of the lungs. It has no known cause and progressively gets worse over time. “I went home in a trance. I thought it was a death sentence,” says Milich. “I began to research, and everything I read said it is terminal within three to five years. I told the pulmonologist that I wanted a second opinion from the best, and I was pleasantly See DIGNITY
HEALTH page 6
(Special to Times Publications)
Thanks to the Norton Thoracic Institute at St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center, Pat Milich could enjoy Disneyland with her grandchildren.
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