I’m Aware That I’m Rare: Rebecca Hamilton (260)

The phaware® interview

Rebecca Hamilton was diagnosed with portopulomnary hypertension in 2015. She details her multi-year court battle for disability benefits.

My name is Rebecca Hamilton. I am 44 years old and I was diagnosed with portopulomnary hypertension on December 20th, 2015.

From my understanding, portopulmonary hypertension is diagnosed when someone has chronic liver disease and somehow that affects the cleaning of the blood so they believe that liver disease has caused the problems with my heart and my lungs.

I was 41 and I had just given birth to a little boy on December 7th, 2015. What seemed like a normal pregnancy, a normal delivery other than the fact that I had to be put under general anesthesia due to low platelets which is something that often happens with liver disease patients, I had to be put to sleep to have him. I had my fourth C-section and went into recovery. Had a normal hospital stay with a newborn and was released back home with the rest of my family about three days later.