Love Your Lungs Week 21 June – 27 June
In the UK someone dies from lung disease every 5 minutes and around 10,000 people in the UK are newly diagnosed with a lung disease every week. Lung diseases are responsible for more than 700,000 hospital admissions and over 6 million inpatient bed-days in the UK each year.
Ron Flewett one our Patient Research Ambassadors was diagnosed with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in 2014. IPF is a rare disease in which the lungs become scarred and breathing becomes increasingly difficult. Several treatments can help reduce the rate at which IPF gets worse, but there's currently no treatment that can stop or reverse the scarring of the lungs.
Ron shares his story around his diagnosis.
“On 11th April 2014, I was diagnosed with IPF. I was one of the first people in the country to go on pirfenidone, an anti-fibrotic drug that helps slow down deterioration of the lungs. I remember when I came out of the consultation, I had switched off, all I heard was that I had three to five years left to live. I had recently met Maxine the women of my dreams and we spent nights upon nights, weeks upon weeks crying because I had met the women of my dreams and I thought it’s all going to be taken away from me. You have to plan everything when you have IPF, you can’t just get up and go anywhere. You have to think I have a busy day today I have to rest tomorrow.”