Blog #11: Interview Regarding Chronic Illness: COPD

Interview someone who is living with a chronic illness. What are their lived experiences? What are they doing to try to maintain their health despite the disease?

I chose to interview my mother regarding her experiences with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and lung cancer.

As did many young people of her generation (WWII and late Depression Era) my mother began smoking in her early teens. She was fourteen, and started smoking because so many family members and peers also smoked, and it seemed the natural thing to do. Little did she know that what would become a lifetime habit would also impact her life so negatively during her senior years. She was a heavy smoker (more than two packs per day) for over 40 years, but had surprisingly few symptoms until she developed severe allergic asthmatic bronchitis approximately fifteen years ago. Even then she continued to smoke when she was not experiencing a “flare-up”, but ultimately had to make the choice: smoke or breathe. Her combination of emphysema and newly-diagnosed chronic asthmatic bronchitis made it necessary to choose a healthier lifestyle after she was diagnosed with severe Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). She was hospitalized for ten days in an intensive care unit, exhausted from struggling so hard to breathe, and near the point of requiring a ventilator to assist her with breathing. This experience changed her life, and she returned home with a supply of bronchodilators, inhaled steroid medications, and instructions from her physician to alter her diet and increase activity to strengthen her respiratory muscles. Although she has never smoked another cigarette since the day of her hospital discharge, she continues to require bronchodilators every day of her life, and her physical activity and stamina is severely limited due to her underlying lung disease.

To further complicate her health condition, she was diagnosed with Stage II lung cancer nearly six years ago (many years after she had stopped smoking). Because she was not physically strong enough to undergo surgery, she completed several courses of chemotherapy and radiation therapy to stop the progression of her disease. The after-effects of the radiation therapy caused additional lung scarring which further compromised her lung function. But she is a strong and determined woman, and the test results from her most recent visit to see her pulmonologist indicate she remains cancer-free.

Despite this, she lives day-to-day with approximately 30% of her optimal lung capacity, and is severely limited in all of her daily activities. She must use bronchodilators and inhaled steroids every day of her life, just to be able to breathe somewhat normally. She knows that she would probably benefit from a pulmonary rehabilitation program designed to increase her strength and stamina, but she simply does not have the energy to do this. Her lifestyle is very sedentary, which further contributes to the overall “deconditioning” experienced by so many people with COPD (American Lung Association, 2009).

Her disease is chronic and irreversible, and she admits wondering about how life might have been as a lifetime non-smoker.

Carol Martin
Cmartin18@twu.edu

References:
American Lung Association. Retrieved November 12, 2009 from http://www.lungusa.org/