Life Tethered to a Concentrator — Caroline Gainer

Main banner for Caroline Gainer's column, "Life Tethered to a Concentrator"

Caroline Gainer is from West Virginia, the state with the highest rate of COPD in the United States. She was diagnosed with moderate-to-severe COPD in 2013 after a pneumothorax (lung collapse). After two more lung collapses she was diagnosed as severe. She has been very active with the American Lung Association and the COPD Foundation as an advocate for people with lung disease. She hopes that her column, “Life Tethered to a Concentrator,” will inspire others to live their best life with COPD.

Featured Post

Living with COPD isn’t a test that I have to pass

I’ve spent a long time believing I wrote this column for other people — for anyone trying to build a decent life with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), who wakes up each morning negotiating with their own lungs. While that’s still part of it, lately, I’ve realized something I…

Caroline Gainer

My animals keep me motivated as I navigate life with COPD

Those of us with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) sometimes struggle to stay motivated to do the things that keep us healthy. My animals keep me focused and get me out of bed, even when I don’t want to get up. They must be fed and cared for in…

Exercise can help with COPD, so I make it fun with trail hiking

Staying active can help ease the symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Sometimes I find this challenging because I get tired of doing the same exercises or going to the same places to walk. I have tried to lessen the boredom by changing up my…

How I finish my housework while managing COPD and fatigue

My mother taught me that once you start a job, you need to finish it — or at least do as much as you can — before quitting. With chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), I’ve learned to complete my home projects a little differently. As I mentioned last…

How planning has helped me to live better with COPD

Most of us with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have probably told our friends that our plans are always penciled in so that they can be easily changed. If that is true, why am I talking about planning? Because having a plan helps us not to fail. The first one…

I’m proof that improvement is possible after a COPD exacerbation

Progress is often painfully slow when managing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and recovering from exacerbations, but improvement is possible. Please allow me to relate an example from my personal experience. Since I was released from the hospital on Aug. 16, 2022, following an exacerbation of my disease,…

Here’s a fun way to do breathing exercises as a COPD patient

For those of us with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), the objective of most of our treatments is to improve breathing. Some medications act to open our airways. These are called bronchodilators. We have other medicines and devices to clear the airways of mucus. And we…

How humming and nasal irrigation have helped me avoid infection

Usually, by this point in the spring, I’ve had at least one upper respiratory infection — a common complication of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). My last one was particularly problematic and led to double pneumonia. I was in the hospital for eight days and required noninvasive ventilation for…

My journey with long-term supplemental oxygen due to COPD

While the name of this column is “Life Tethered to a Concentrator,” so far, I haven’t yet discussed my journey with long-term supplemental oxygen. Today, I’d like to take you along on that journey. I was in denial — one of the five stages of grief —…

Why mornings became difficult after my COPD diagnosis

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is cruel in that it can cause some of our good habits to be replaced with bad ones. For instance, my mornings used to be very productive, but after COPD turned my life upside down, mornings became a struggle, and I no longer looked…


Explore More Columns