Life Tethered to a Concentrator
— Caroline Gainer

When I was a little girl, my mother often sent me to the cornfield with my father. I suspect it was partly to give her a moment of quiet, because I was at the age of endless questions. Daddy didn’t mind. He handed me a hoe and gave me a…

Navigating a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a lot like driving one of those narrow West Virginia backroads with blind curves and no guardrails. The kind of road where you ease off the gas without being told, because you’ve lived long enough to know that what…

When I was in elementary school, I told my parents that something was crawling on me at night. They exchanged the kind of knowing look adults give when they think a child is expressing emotion instead of sensation. They suspected school stress or a plea to sleep between them. But…

People with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) may know what to do in a breathing crisis, but that doesn’t always mean we will do the correct thing. When I was diagnosed, I knew that when my portable concentrator beeped to tell me I was running short on battery…

This Easter, I found myself at home with nothing special planned. No ham in the oven, no table set, no small ritual to mark the day. Just a quiet house and a long afternoon. And somewhere in that stillness, I realized I’d let chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) shrink…

I was on one of my “let’s see where this road goes” adventures, the kind with those blind curves you don’t see until you’re already in them, when I noticed something unsettling. My portable oxygen concentrator (POC) wasn’t giving me oxygen with every breath. It wasn’t a dramatic failure, just…

There are times in life when illness doesn’t just slow you down— it rearranges you. I didn’t see it happening at first. I thought I was simply tired or behind, in need of a weekend to catch up. But slowly, almost quietly, I began to lose the version of myself…

There are days when I realize my world has grown smaller without my permission. After illness, the boundaries of daily life contract almost imperceptibly. A trip that once felt routine — like driving to Tamarack, West Virginia, a place I’ve known for years — suddenly feels foreign, as…

When I was in my 20s, I was diagnosed with cancer over a phone call. What a way to practice medicine, but I felt something I didn’t expect: relief. Not because the diagnosis was easy — it wasn’t — but because the not‑knowing had been worse. The fear lived in…

I grew up in a home where encouragement was woven into the walls. My mother offered it from the kitchen table while stirring supper and guiding me through homework. My father shared it from his living room chair, patient and steady as he walked me through math problems. Their sayings…

Some mornings, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) feels like it has already made the first decision for me. Before I even swing my legs over the side of the bed, the tightness in my chest tells me what kind of day it’s going to be. On those days, I…

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…