As George Burns wrote, getting old ain’t for sissies and I am here to tell you that COPD Ain’t for Sissies either.  I speak to you from personal experience because that is all that I know for certain.  I know things from people who have COPD and I know things from research, but I am certain about my own experience.

Ninety percent of the time I would prefer to stay in bed most of the day.  I get up because I have a dog and a cat that depend upon me for food, water, and love.  They give back more love than I give I am sure of that.  Once I get up then I have what seems like a mountain of prescriptions and supplements that I need to take along with my inhaler.  Okay so now that is all that I absolutely had to do today, so why not go back to bed?  This is where the non-Sissie part comes in.

The non-Sissie makes a list of chores, checks email, responds to a research study, and performs the 7-minute workout routine.  Now that the blood is pumping it is time to start my day.  I fight each morning to make myself do the 7-minute workout, but after that I have some fights throughout the day to do chores that I am not particularly fond of doing.  Some of these chores were things that I used to enjoy.  One of them is on my list today and that is to weed the front flower bed.

Why do I dread weeding the flower bed?  It is hard to bend over and some days it is harder than others.  Weeding makes me very tired, and I cannot work at it for an extended period.  The result is that it takes me a long time to do a chore that used to only take a small fraction of my day.

When the day is over and I have checked everything or almost everything off my list then I feel very good about the day, but getting the day started is not an easy thing to do. COPD is definitely not for sissies.