Several years ago, I lost my job due to a knee injury and had to give up my health insurance. No big deal for me; I always been disgustingly healthy. But my stay at home wife not so much. One of her ailments is hypertension. Not horribly high, but high enough to be of concern. It went untreated for six months and as a result she had a bout with congestive heart failure. Which resulted in an enlarged heart and edema. When we finally tracked down a county clinic we could take her to they injected her with some high potency BP med and they had her laying in a darkened room for an hour. They gave us a referral to a clinic that had a sliding scale charge with pay as you go office visits. The doctor was quite concerned about her heart.

My wife would fall asleep sometimes. Once I came home from work to find her asleep in front of the computer. I had it set to go to screen saver at ten minutes of inactivity; to sleep after thirty more minutes and finally to hibernate an hour after that. The computer had gone to hibernate, Another time she was laying across the foot of our king size bed and I couldn't tell if she was breathing. I pulled the trick you do with babies; I moved her arm an inch and she moved it back.

I was concerned because she was in Stage C; the survival is only 41% and that for surviving for five years. I'm happy to report that that has been over fifteen years and our current doctor is no longer concerned about her heart, though it is still slightly enlarged.