Living with emphysema?

Do you have a story about living with emphysema or of living with someone who has / had it?

My father had this dreadful disease - he gave up smoking as soon as he was diagnosed - it is heartbreaking to watch someone you love so dearly lose their quality of life. He went from a fit healthy and active man to a shadow of himself - housebound and on oxygen 24 hours a day.
Sadly he passed away 10 years ago after a 12 year battle and not a day goes by when i dont miss him dreadfully. It is a horrible illness which destroys the sufferer and their family.

My uncle had it
2 words
Dont smoke.

My Mother had it for ten years before it contributed to her death. It's what would make even the frequent smoker give up. It's like drowning in phlegm to put it bluntly. She had a carrier bag full of drugs and every two hours had to use an inhaler >she smoked with it too which made me very angry but she could not give up even though she couldn't breath!

ido,its not nice and i dont want to upset anyone on here by writing it,god bless

I've nursed lots of people with it. It's not good.

As an RT, I deal with people who have it every day.

When I was in RT school, I saw two cross sections of a lung...One cross section was from a healthy lung...It was like most healthy lungs, you could see the cheese like holes and sacs and airways. The other cross section was taken out of a man with emphysema, and from the same section as the healthy lung. They had mounted these cross sections in plexiglass so as to see the light coming thru them. The healthy lung stopped light from coming thru it. The emphysemic lung was so non-dense, that light was coming thru, and you could make out objects behind it. It needs to be said, the lungs were the exact same size, from the exact same area of the body/lung section...

Just remember, smoking destroys the lung...litterally...

I have emphysema. I certainly live with it every day. What would you like to know about it? If you are serious you can email me & I would be glad to answer any questions.

The disease attacked my life & left me hooked to my plastic umbilical cord. (my cord to my oxygen tank 24/7) It is a hurtful, nasty thing to live with.

There is a saying among people with emphysema (COPD) that "you cannot let the disease control you, you have to control the disease." Believe me, there are days I don't care who controls the disease, I get tired of the battle.