Linda Coleman, a North Battleford resident, maintains a large vegetable garden, mows her own lawn, golfs, and puts up elaborate Christmas light displays each year - this year her display won Best Christmas Theme at the Lights Before Christmas contest.
She does this despite having been affected by Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) for nearly 20 years, and having been on oxygen for four.
COPD typically affects smokers, but can also affect anyone exposed to smoke or chemicals, and has some genetic component. According to Coleman, many take the diagnosis as a death sentence - the condition has no cure, and eventually kills. Batteries of pills, inhalers, and treatments, including full lung transplants can stave off the condition or make it easier to breathe, but cannot stop the inexorable, slow deterioration of lung function. At later stages, oxygen is all but essential to survive, forcing Coleman to use an oxygen-creating machine with a 50-foot cord at all times.
Coleman deals with her condition through a variety of means. Some of these are, of course, purely medical. She has a portable, battery-powered oxygen concentrator that creates oxygen out of the air, along with arrays of inhalers and pills. But she has also found help for her condition in non-medical settings - on the Internet and with the local Strides program held at the Alex Dillabough Centre.
Online, Coleman found a supportive community at www.copdcanada.ca, where those with the condition were able to share their stories of life with the condition, talk about new medications and treatments and find help for everyday problems. The community on the web forum is international, allowing for a broad range of perspectives on healthcare issues. Through it, Coleman learned about new medications, some of which have helped her greatly and even learned about "Action Plans," prescriptions filed in anticipation of an eventual illness, rather than after it. Having antibiotics available in case of an infection has spared her trips to the hospital, which could in themselves be dangerous.
She also found help at Strides, a community health program for patients with chronic conditions under the Prairie North Health Region. Twice per week, a group with COPD meets to exercise and learn about their condition at the Alex Dillabough Centre in Battleford. In addition to giving people with the condition an opportunity to exercise, the program also has an education component. Coleman explained she learned new breathing techniques and new ways of walking at Strides session that had helped her greatly in everyday life
For many people with COPD, the stigma associated with it can be itself crippling. Because those affected by the condition are overwhelmingly smokers, they often worry about being seen in public with oxygen tubes. Like elderly people refusing to use walkers in public, people with COPD often try to avoid being seen with oxygen tubes in public.
But in spite of being on a 50-foot "leash" of an oxygen tube, being frequently out of breath and having trouble breathing if the weather is too cold, hot, humid or dusty, Coleman has assembled an impressive Christmas light display, much beloved by her neighbours,
Her message - don't let the fear of a chronic condition, or the social stigma associated with it, keep you from living your life to the fullest.
