Question: My 78 year old mom was diagnosed three years ago by her local family doctor with advanced copd. He obviously made this diagnosis based on her spirometry readings and his knowledge that she had smoked for 35 years. He put her on advair and she has done fairly well. The past years she has had 2-3 disabling episodes, breathing problems, coughing, extreme fatigue, congestion, but she would always recover. The past month she has continuously gone downhill with all the symptoms, so breathless she could barely talk. She could barely get out of bed to go to the bathroom. Last week I finally convinced her to go to a specialist (pulmonologist), she agreed. The pulmonologist took an xray, told us that she had very few signs of copd. However, her heart was double in size. He sent us to a cardiologist today and the echocardiogram revealed an ejection fraction of 20 percent, a heart rate of 118. Also, her ankles were very swollen until the pulmonologist put her on two meds for this. The meds have started working, her ankles are almost back to normal, her breathing is much better. She still gets very easily fatigued. The cardiologist instructed her to continue the two meds for fluid retention for two more weeks, then return to see him and he will start her on two more meds. He thinks she will be stable by then. Should we be alarmed by her ef of 20 percent? They have now done an echo, xray and electro. Surely these specialists wouldn't send her home if she needed hospitalization would they?

I just wish to apologize for sending two "no response" messages to this service. My e-mail has glitches and when I did not receive the response in my e-mail I panicked. I did not know that I would receive an answer on this web page. Just one more question. Yesterday she was feeling very well, the best in several weeks. Because of this she was very active, minor housecleaning, walking throughout the day without the assistance of a cane, etc. Is this safe. Should she be curtailing her activities?