Life Tethered to a Concentrator — Caroline Gainer

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

When I was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in 2013, my first emotion was relief. I had a diagnosis; the feeling that I was slowly deteriorating was not just in my head. I did what…