Woman thrives at 70 years old despite disease

‘I’m savoring every day,” said Lya Hale. “I honestly wake up every morning and think ‘I’m such a lucky person — here’s another beautiful day in front of me.’”

In 2006, Hale was an active 67-year-old woman who went blind in her left eye and a little more than eight months later, had a heart attack — both results of cardiovascular disease.

Now approaching 70, she has no guarantees against recurrences, but she is getting on with doing what she has to do so she can do the best she can.

“She has such inner strength,” said her friend Gail Kowalski of Lynchburg. “She is determined to lead as normal life as possible.”

Nothing about Lya Hale speaks of illness.

Her complexion retains the pink-and-white smoothness of her Dutch origins, also apparent in a light accent when she speaks English, one of several languages in which she is fluent.

Hale enjoys playing bridge, reading, creative writing and exercise — she maintains a membership at an area gym.

She has lived in Lynchburg since the 1970s, when she and her husband, the late Dr. Fletcher Hale, moved here. In those years, her busy life included helping in his optometry office, raising their son, doing volunteer work and enjoying year-round tennis.

Even after those basics changed with time, her life remained active.

Lya Hale had little warning around the beginning of the new year in 2006 that she was to go blind in one eye.

“I was at a Christening — a friend of mine’s granddaughter. Earlier, in church, at one point I see this little white puff.”

It went away quickly, and she thought to herself, “‘I hope I’m not going to get a migraine.’”

At the Christening brunch, she realized the peripheral vision in her left eye was closing in.

A friend noticed her expression, and asked her what was wrong.

“I’m blind in my left eye,” said Lya.

Among the guests were several physicians. A quick exam found she couldn’t perceive light from the eye.

“One of the women took me to the ER.”

The ER doctor, who saw her, gave her a partial diagnosis, but hedged on saying the blindness was permanent, advising her to consult the on-call ophthalmologist in his office the next day. And she did.

That doctor diagnosed central retinal artery occlusion — blockage of a small but important blood vessel in the eye.

That night, she called her own ophthalmologist, who had been out of town, and he sent her back to the ER for blood tests to rule out large cell arteritis, an inflammation of the temporal arteries that could have caused blindness in her other eye.

This time, she drove herself to the ER.

Afterward, as she was walking to her car, she again saw a white puff. “I thought ‘Oh, my God, I’m going to be totally blind.’”

She looked up and saw white smoke coming out of a chimney.

“I went, ‘Halleluiah! Thank the Lord!’ It was so amazing. It was so frightening — then to realize it was nothing, it was an incredible experience.”

Dr. Kerry Woodroof, of Bedford, her ophthalmologist, said his solo practice sees perhaps one or two cases a year of central retinal arterial occlusion.

“It is generally permanent,” said Woodroof. Family history of arterial disease, particularly of the carotid arteries of the neck, heart disease or any condition that can cause a blood clot is important in determining risk, he said.

Hale began adjusting to blindness in her left eye. Fortunately, she could still drive.

“If I were not able to drive, I would be lost. I would overcome it, and I would compensate, and not die. But it would be really, really hard.”

Then on Labor Day 2006 while doing paperwork, “all of a sudden I have this pressure and tightness in my chest. And I’m taking really deep breaths, I realize I’m perspiring and I realize I have a little bit of nausea. I lay down for a while. Nothing changed. I walked to the kitchen. I took an aspirin. I took really, really deep breaths.”

Her blood pressure monitor read 177/101 — critically high. “I thought maybe it was a false reading.” She took it again, and it was 177/99.

“I drove myself to the ER.”

She told the triage nurse “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

The next morning, she underwent cardiac catheterization to implant a small metal mesh tube called a stent, which opened up a blockage of about 80 percent in one artery.

Reluctantly, she accepted that medications would become part of her daily regimen. She researched her family medical history and found that heart disease is prevalent.

Cardiovascular disease can turn up first in small blood vessels, said Dr. Geeta Rakheram, a Lynchburg specialist in internal medicine.

Patients need to recognize risk factors, said Rakheram. Among them is family history.

“You cannot predict someone’s vascular risk by looking,” she said. “They can have a normal body and an abnormal profile.”

HDL and LDL cholesterol, diabetes, high blood pressure, diet and tobacco use are among other factors to consider.

Treatment varies. “Everyone will be different,” she said.

Medical intervention is important, she said, but so is lifestyle modification – exercise, diet and being temperate.

For someone with a high-risk profile but who maintains diet and exercise optimums, the effect of medications is enhanced by that improved lifestyle, Rakheram said.

Lya Hale takes that advice seriously. She’s had “one or two pity parties,” but keeps a sense of the future.

In September, she flew to the Netherlands to join in a 90th birthday surprise for her aunt. At the end of the month, she went on “the trip of a lifetime — a land tour and cruise of Greece.”

But it doesn’t have to be a grand experience to get her attention.

“I am thankful for each day and very much enjoy the small things in each day. I am happy.”