So You Have Been Diagnosed With COPD?

Image of the parts belonging to respiratory system

So You Have COPD?

Have you been diagnosed with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease)? Do you feel that you do not have much to live far? Permit me to share my story of coping with this lung disease. I was diagnosed following years of smoking.

I had smoked for thirty-three years and was up to three and one half packs a days. After I received salvation in my middle years, I felt dirty by my smoking but could not stop. I put a small note in my Bible, “LORD< I cannot do this on my own. YOU have to help me.” During a revival six months later, I received laying-on-of-hands, prayer, and a prophecy. I have not smoked since, this is 2010.

I had no car and the wonderful people taking me places I needed to go, did smoke and their second hand smoke got in my clothes and hair and lung. Their smoke would hinder my breathing and it showed in my lung testing as I had much congestion and wheezing due to it. So if you smoke around one that has COPD, please cease from harming them any longer.

Smoking is a very fatal possession that can be avoided by never starting or by stopping if you have began to smoke.

I told you how hard it was for me to quit, so I know the anxiety it brings. I also know the pain and suffering that I now have because I did not stop soon enough.

A step-son with lung cancer passed away several years ago, where he was in the hospital for four months prior to his departure. He smoked up to the time he went in. A friend of mine also had COPD and would not give up her habit, and it cost her dearly. Her life!

If you are smoking and have COPD, you can still add some time to your life if you quit now. Smoking is a life sucking habit. If you are smoking and have not been diagnosed yet, please I implore you to stop before it is too late. Then you will not have to catch a breath to walk across the room, and climb stairs which seems impossible to you.

I’ve had times when I was unable to have family and friends to visit or even speak on the telephone due to lack of air. At one time my hospice nurse ordered ALL visits and calls to be stopped. Then I really felt useless, even to my family and myself.

For those with COPD, life isn’t over, just greatly modified. There are weak days and strong days. Some you feel so rewarded with life at its best. Rejoice, you have a life-threatening disease, but those rewarding days allow you to set goals you can reach.

My COPD was complicated by other serious diseases.* Times I pressed onward and it was not always easy. I had to overcome the feeling of uselessness. You can also feel this way at times. So you have COPD, seek the LORD, and enjoy the life that you have, even if it is modified and your activities restricted.

During one severe episode, I remember asking GOD - “Will I be able to sing again? Not if I was going to live? I had even lost my air to speak. I asked HIM to be with me.

Not only was HE with me then, many times following HE also gave me the inspiration to write lyrics and compose music. WOW I never had music lessons, even though I was born into a very singing family which was large. So far I have written over eighty songs which HE inspired me to write.

Once I was in the emergency room, the nurse kept saying, Breathe deep. Take a deep breathe.” I was thinking, “Honey, I can’t even get a shallow breathe because I was totally unable to speak and I was taking in air as a gulping fish.

Breath is so precious. If peer pressure is causing you to smoke, think, where will my smoking friends be when I can not longer do the things (mentioned already) I once did. I am unable to sing now, it takes to much breath to draw air from the lungs while bringing it up from your diaphragm, I still do write and compose, as well as write for children and young adults. One of the booklets is entitled, “Smoking or Whatever?”

Every cigarette you smoke -- whether the over-the-counter kind, or the street smoke (weed, you are taking your life in your own hands just as if you were a driver and crashed into a brick wall at full speed.

Over fourteen million people have COPD in just the USA alone. COPD develops over a period of years and is 9 to 10 caused by smoking.

Your walking, cleaning, making beds, cooking, laundry or other activities will be modified due to the inability to breathe. But you can do it -- seriously. Just know your limitations and when your body is in stress -- press on. Nevertheless it says, “STOP!”, stop immediately.

I know the days I can go to the gym, now it will be with a portable oxygen tank, if it is humid or whether I wait for a better day. Yeah, there is a tomorrow.

I mentioned that I had other serious diseases, and they include these:

Congested Heart Failure (CHF)

COPD

Atriafibulation

Fluid retention due to CHF

Asthma

Lumbago

Sciatica (pain coming from back)

Poor conditioning of abdominal and back exterior muscles

Lumbar ( arthritis of back)

Degenerative spondylolisthesis (slippage of L4-L5)

Restless Leg Syndrome