When I was a very young boy I thought Middle Age is 30-something. As I got older, my concept of Middle Age got older and if asked a week ago, I would have said, yes, at age 54, I am Middle Aged! But all that changed since then. I have lost another Dear Friend, Laura! Laura died of an insidous, cruel smoking-related illness called COPD. Now, if you're like I was 2 years ago, you have probably heard of COPD but don't know much about it. Isn't it like Asthma or allergies or something? "Old people" must get it because those commercials for Spiriva and Advair seem to have old white grandparents running and playing with their grandkids because they tool their medicine, right? But what does that have to do with Middle Age?
Well, for My friend Laura, Middle Age was - although surely she didn't know it - 29 years old! Can you imagine? 29! So "Young!" She was no different than you and me at 29. She had a Family to raise, kept her home, visited with her friends, had a relaxing smoke from time to time during her busy day, thought, yes, dreamed of the future.... Little did she know that her life was half over!
What Laura - and I - didn't know about that ocassional smoke was that it was literally killing her - one puff at a time! She didn't know that just ONE SICKERETTE was enough to trigger an auto-immune response that would permanently damage her lungs! She didn't know that that little cough she had was more than "just allergies or maybe a cold the kids dragged home from school!" She didn't know that her shortness of breath was more than just the normal exhaustion that all parents feel from time to time or that the fact that she ran out of energy after walking or running a little too much was anything other than natural "maturation."
When Laura died, I went into a deep depression. I relived all those warning signs that I had ignored 5, 10, 20 years ago! I reenacted in my mind that ominous day 2 years ago when I heard those incredible words - inflated lungs - emphysema - COPD! What on Earth are you talking about? If that Doctor had said Cancer I would have been less surprised, I think! We've all been told of Cancer, even joked about Cancer Sticks! But Emphysema! I honestly had never heard of it in any clear way!
Now isn't that Amazing! The third largest killer in the U.S. Who hasn't heard of heart disease, Cancer, Strokes, Diabetes - but COPD? It was sort of like MS - something that I just never had much reason or opportunity to know anything about! Old man's disease? Not! Folks all ages unfortunately have COPD - 90% of which is smoking related!
We've all seen those old people with their oxygen tanks and air hoses but we try not to look and flip a forget switch in our brains - especially Nicotine Addicts or at best, take a second to Thank God I'm not like that! That person has nothing to do with me! Then we turn our backs and go about our business! That's what I'm going a long way toward saying! That person could be YOU and ME! That person was Laura, JoJo, Thomas, people you know - people you call Friends even though you never met us! That's one small part of what it means to have COPD!
You have no idea what it's like to be on the receiving side of that diverted glance! You can't imagine the painful conversation the day you have to tell your Wife, your Children that you have a chronic, progressive smoking-related illness that will suck the energy right out of you and literally leave you breathless! I hope you never know what it's like to tell loved ones - please don't come near me if you have "just a cold" because it could land me in a hospital! Or to tell the Wife, I can't clean this or paint that, I can't go here or keep up with you there, I can't take care of you, I can't even promise that I'll be there for you in the futureI CAN'T! I'm the Husband! It's my job - my identity to do those things! But now I have a new identity - the sick family member that everybody has to take care of me! I will need more and more care, more and more money, more and more of your energy because the one sure thing about COPD is that it never ever gets better - at best, it stays the same and more likely, it gets worse.....and worse...and worse... and then like my Friend Laura, you finally succomb to death - at 50 something years old!
Still want to light that SICKERETTE?
