Celeste Bromham's Story

Celeste Bromham is swimming again.

For five years, three more than she was told to expect to live, Celeste carried an extra black ‘handbag’ attached to her arm. Her daughter Britney explained to curious school friends that the gadget was mummy’s medicine. In addition to the Pic line in her arm, Celeste also took two oral medications.

“She’s not really known me as anything but sick. She can’t remember when I used to do normal activities with her. I used to have a pump connected to my arm, I couldn’t swim,” Celeste said.

It was a fitness kick when she was 22 that led Celeste to discover she has pulmonary hypertension, high blood pressure in the lungs. Jogging around a track she experienced her first black out. The second black out happened when Celeste was taking the bin out. She didn’t make it back up the stairs.

By the third time she recognised the nausea and headache, and sat down to avoid passing out. She also experienced headaches, chest pain, shortness of breath and her lips turned blue.

“I thought I’d eaten something which made my lips blue, like one of those blue lollies,” she said.

After a visit to her GP, Celeste was referred for several tests including a head scan to look for signs of epilepsy. Suspecting the abdomen pain was caused by gall stones, Celeste’s doctor also ordered a CT scan.

“That’s when they saw the extra fluid around the heart,” she says. “Then they had to work out why it was there.”

Two weeks of tests led to the diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension and Celeste was told people usually only survive two years. She was transferred to The Prince Charles Hospital, Queensland’s Centre for Pulmonary Transplantation and Vascular Disease.

Through the pulmonary hypertension program, run by Dr Fiona Kermeen, Celeste was given a combination of medications to reduce her symptoms. Recently, after five years, she switched from the Pic line in her arm to an inhaled drug.

“I was only to walk a few steps. In two metres I’d be puffed, completely out of breath… It restricts me from doing activities that would exert me, running around. Riding a bike on a flat area is OK. The medicine allows me to do activities and exercise.”

Pulmonary hypertension affects around 100 people per million, mainly young women and often after they’ve had a child. Britney had just turned four when her mother was diagnosed.

“When she was young she didn’t understand much of it and I couldn’t really explain. But she understands now and she asks questions. She’s very understanding. She does get frustrated that I can’t do certain things with her, but she accepts that I can’t. I might’ve got it even if I hadn’t had her, so I’m glad I did.”

It’s hard to believe this vivacious young woman with the huge smile has spent the last five years with a machine attached to her arm. The new inhaler allows Celeste to get into the pool with her daughter, for the first time since Britney was four.

“That’s how people could tell I was sick. Now I don’t have to worry about changing dressings every week. You feel a bit more free… You feel normal, a lot more normal. I’ve been on the transplant list twice and taken off because the medications I’ve got are working for me.”