Ruling the disease

Editor's note: This is the first in a two-part series on lay minister Phil Price's battle with Peripheral Arterial Disease.

Phil Price sits in his living room next to his favorite chair – the one he sat in when he retrained himself to walk – recalling the chain of events.

Waking up in a state of paralysis. Learning both his carotid arteries were blocked. Suffering three strokes. Being told he had 30 days to live.

All this happened shortly after Price lost five of the people closest to him, including his best friend and wife Diana.

“The human part of me comes out, and I wonder, ‘Why, Lord? Why do I have to deal with all this? Death all around me – this is ridiculous,’” said Price, 58, lay minister at Plymouth Congregational Church in Orient and former owner of Phil Price Construction.

“I don’t want the spotlight, but I want hope for others. What difference is it if it’s PAD (Peripheral Arterial Disease) and you’re given a terminal notice or stage-four cancer? It doesn’t matter the disease; it’s what happens to your mindset. That’s the challenge.”

Now, both of Price’s carotid arteries and one of his back-up or “reserve” arteries are completely blocked. His other reserve artery, the only one left to deliver blood to his brain, is 50 percent blocked. Doctors don’t understand how Price is still alive, let alone functioning normally.

Usually, blocked arteries are the result of a build-up of plaque, which is cholestorel, calcium and fibrous tissue. Price’s case is unusual. He has a build-up of calcium only.

Usually, people with both carotid arteries blocked either cannot function properly or die from lack of blood flow to the brain. Again, Price’s case is unusual. Aside from walking a bit ungracefully, he lives a normal life. And it’s been more than a year since he received the 30-day terminal notice.

“I’m an oddity, unexplainable, a weird duck,” Price said. “The specialists have no explanations, and the only one I’m going to fall back on is my faith.”

The start of it all

On May 15, 2014, around 5:30 a.m., Price awoke with the tingly feeling of paralysis on the left, lower quarter of his body.

“I couldn’t move part of my body – it went numb,” he said. “Finally, I got myself pulled up out of bed. I was smacking my leg, and everything was prickly. I figured I tweaked my back.”

It didn’t get better over the weekend, so he went to see a doctor in Creston the following Monday. He found out he had four bulges in his back and was sent to Des Moines for back surgery. But the neurosurgeon in Des Moines said it wasn’t his back.

Neurologists performed several tests on Price. On June 10, 2014, doctors discovered both of his carotid arteries were fully blocked and one of his reserve arteries was partially blocked.

“The specialists came out, and they said, ‘We’re sorry. There’s nothing you can do. You have about 30 days left. You’re going to have a massive stroke, and you’re gone,’” Price said.

The 30-day notice drove him crazy. He was counting down the days.

“Everything that went wrong, I was like, ‘Is this the start of it?’ I finally thought, ‘Forget it. I’m going to mow my yard. If I die mowing my yard, at least I’m doing something.’ Why would you want to sit around all day and think, ‘Am I dying today?’ I never was one to sit around; I’m not about to start,” he said.

It was determined Price’s paralysis May 15 was due to a spinal cord stroke.

His first diagnosis was transverse myelitis in his left leg, which is an inflammation of the spinal cord that targets the material covering nerve cell fibers and may affect sensation. Usually, transverse myelitis is the result of a spinal injury, so doctors couldn’t figure out why Price developed it. The transverse myelitis caused Price to lose pain and temperature sensation in his left leg. Evenually, it spread a little to his right leg.

Meanwhile, Price still couldn’t get his left leg to work.

The disease

It wasn’t until September 2014 that doctors discovered the explanation for Price’s previously inexplicable issues. He was diagnosed with Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD).

According to Web MD, PAD is a disease characterized by plaque build-up in the arteries that carry blood to the brain, other organs and limbs. PAD is heriditary, and those who have it are at much higher risk of coronary artery disease, heart attacks and strokes. Though PAD is treatable, if it isn’t caught early on, it becomes more dangerous with time.

“My (build-up) is mostly calcium, which is really weird,” Price said. “It hadn’t been noticed through all my physicals because I don’t have cholesterol issues, high blood pressure or any of the other symptoms.”

Once the doctors found PAD in Price, he only had about 10 percent of the blood flow to his brain.

“Your faith gets challenged,” he said. “I don’t understand it, but I believe and teach we all have a purpose in life. My perspective is I have two choices: I can let this disease rule my life, or I can rule the disease.”

A medical perspective on PAD

According to the website of Dr. George Todd, who has performed more than 15,000 surgical operations and has made the annual "Top Doctors in America" list 13 times since 2001, a patient may be able to live with 100 percent blockage of his carotid arteries if his body develops alternative ways of getting blood to his brain.

Todd wrote on his website there are four main arteries that supply blood to the brain: the right internal carotid artery, left internal carotid artery, right vertebral artery and left vertebral artery.

“All of these arteries usually come together in a kind of ‘traffic circle’ at the center of the brain, called the Circle of Willis,” Todd wrote. “When one of the arteries leading into the Circle of Willis gets blocked, the other arteries usually enlarge over time to carry more blood flow.”

Once a carotid artery is completely blocked, Todd wrote, surgery is almost never recommended, which is what doctors told Price. However, Todd said the brain is outstanding in its ability to re-route blood flow.

“Although the internal carotid arteries are completely blocked, the patient has survived that event,” Todd wrote. “As long as the other (smaller) arteries continue to flow normally, there may not be any further neurological problems.”

Bad timing

Price’s diagnosis came at a difficult time, as he had recently lost five of the people closest to him.

Back in 2002, his mother passed away to a combination of PAD and cervical cancer. She, too, didn’t know she had PAD until very late in life.

Recently, in November 2013, Price’s wife came down with pneumonia that progressed to double pneumonia, meaning it was affecting both her lungs. Doctors discovered Diana had mucous in her lungs, and on Jan. 26, 2013, after 63 days on life support and suffering several strokes, Price had to let her go.

“They tried everything, and it was getting really severe,” Price said. “I decided I couldn’t keep her.”

While Diana was still alive, Price would sometimes take walks around the hospital building.

“I always walked through the cancer unit, and I’d see these moms with their little kids,” he said. “I’d think about how I’d hate to lose Di after 30 years, but some of these parents only had their kid for two or three years. I thought, what a heartbreak. I have a good life. I thank the Lord I had her for 30 years. That’s what you have to do, just be thankful for the time given.”

Though everything seemed to be bad timing for Price, he said his faith, family and church family kept him afloat.

“We’re there for Phil in any way we can be, but he asks for so very little other than our faith and loyalty,” said Joni Snyder, a member of Plymouth Congregational Church.

Read more of Price’s story in Tuesday’s Creston News Advertiser.