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The Story of LAM





Every story has a beginning, so before I go into what is LAM
let me start by telling you about my mom.

My mom was a healthy baby, toddler and young child.
When she was 16 she was diagnosed with cancer.
She did radiation and chemo. They took a football
size mass out of her. When she was 18 she had to
have a hysterectomy from all the scar tissue and issues,
she lost one of her kidneys too. Come to find out years
later the tumor was not cancer it was just a cyst.
When she started having a lot of breathing problems
she started seeing a specialist. She was originally
diagnosed with COPD because the x-ray of her
lungs looked like she had smoked all her life
(mind you she never once smoked). After years of
testing and several specialists she was diagnosed with LAM.
When she was 56 we lost her to the disease.

Most dr's don't even know about LAM, so let me tell
you a bit about it. LAM is short for (are you ready for it) Lymphangioleiomyomatosis; it took a long time for
me to learn how to pronounce that, now you
know why they call it LAM.

It is a very rare lung disease, it affects only women
and normally starts during childbearing age.
In people who have LAM, abnormal muscle like cells
begin to grow out of control in certain organs or
tissues and especially the lungs, lymph nodes and kidneys. 

Over time these LAM cells can destroy the healthy lung tissue.
As a result cysts may develop in the lungs, preventing
air from moving freely in and out of the lungs.

There are only 1,300 known cases of LAM in America. 

There is a LAM foundation, when my mother passed I
asked for donations to the foundation instead of flowers.
Every year on my birthday I choose the LAM foundation
for my birthday cause. I try to stay active in the
community and have made several friends, some even
knew my mom and some are true fighters!
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