Slowly getting better.

[Angela M...]

Hi Betty, Andy etc. I am slowly getting better from my bout with shingles. If you have not had it and can get the shot to prevent it I urge you run to the doctors. It is the worst thing I have ever had and has left my body scarred from the nasty rash. It has mostly cleared up but is still very painful and I will never swim without a shirt now if the scars don't go away. Anyway I am slowly checking in here more often and sleeping less now as it is the best way to deal with the pain if you can get to sleep. Mostly it was from exhaustion that I would pass out in a chair leaning on the side without the rash but you still toss and turn anyway. I feel like a wimp complaining about that when you Betty are dealing with all the problems that have come your way. Who new when we were going to get older it would be so tough on us.

[Betty]

Desperately breathing gasping for air while feeling like you're suffocating or gonna die is pretty scary. Indeed, I put myself at risk just trying to push myself to do anything when I can't breathe.

Suffocating or feeling like you're suffocating all the time, may be a terrible torture to live with, but there is no real pain. And the more I relax, rest, & try not to move around much, the easier it is to breathe. So I have no problems resting or sleeping most of the time.

It's just the opposite for me. I try to schedule my sleep for when I'm breathing my worst, & when it improves, try to stay up to get as much done as possible before it gets worse again. So I no longer have a sleep schedule. On average, I breathe the worst most mornings, & it improves a little some afternoons. Most nights I'm breathing my best. That makes sense because that's also when the humidity, pollution, ozone, pollen, & temperature is the lowest, which I find is easier for my breathing.

So I usually stay up all night. Then sleep in the mornings. But if I still want to get more stuff done, I may stall sleeping until after lunchtime.

The shingles is very painful by comparison. I still have back problems, & getting some leg pain these days but it's all minor by comparison too, & more than bearable.

Except for the COPD, I'm actually pretty healthy. If they could cure the COPD maybe I could live to be 100. But COPD is a progressive disease which usually progresses very fast once you get older. So I'll be very lucky to be alive 3-5 years from now. Nobody lives forever. One way or another something always gets you in the end. In the meantime we just try to survive the best we can.

For the advanced COPD & limited lung capacity I have, others are on O2 most of the time in an assisted living environment, sitting in a chair or bed most of the day & night. I'm still living independently, & working - - but I don't get enough work, & it takes me a lot longer to get anything done with COPD. No meds, no treatments, no medical insurance, & no state aid, but I'm doing much better than others in the same condition that have lots of insurance or could afford the best treatments.

The few times I'm breathing good enough to make it down the stairs & outside clean shaven, people think I'm one of the college students living in the building - at almost 61!

The biggest frustration is the isolation. Anybody I know well is either dead or lives too far away to visit me often. Even on a good breathing day, I can only leave my well filtered climate controlled apartment for short times, because my breathing gets steadily worse the longer I'm out. Living in the back corner of the building, I can go weeks to months without seeing another person.

It's almost like being in solitary confinement for the past 4 years.

Fortunately I have my computers to communicate with those I know far away, & entertainment. 2 great kitties are fun to have too. Lots of music, video, & reading so I don't get too bored. So it's a little better than prison. But I used to be a pretty social & interactive person. I'm really out of place & frustrated in this disabled isolated lifestyle.

Glad to hear you're getting better. At our age, the scarring will take a while to disappear, & the worst ones may never go away.

Most severe COPD is due to scar tissue on the lungs. It's caused by serious diseases, like a real bad flu or lung infection, smoking, pollution, dirt, dust, or toxic fumes. If they could find a way to grow healthy tissue to replace the scar tissue, I'd be cured.

As we get older we all have some scar tissue in our lungs & it continues to grow faster, the older we get. So when you get more scar tissue than normal, you got the type of COPD that I have. As we continue to loose lung efficiency as we get older, & naturally grow more scar tissue on our lungs, it eventually kills those with already too much scar tissue. By keeping the air as clean, dry, bacteria, mold, & disease free as possible, we slow the natural lung scarring process.

I don't know anyone in our family who ever got the chicken pox or shingles even though we were exposed to it many times. Maybe we have a natural immunity to it. I can't go anywhere so almost never meet anybody, so I don't see how I would catch it.

I don't have money for the shots anyway. The cats need their shots this summer. I'll probably have to borrow the money, & beg someone to come to town to drive them to the vet. They don't like to leave the house & will freak out. I wish I could find a nearby vet who would just come over & give them the shots.

[andyg0404]

Hi Angela,

Glad you are on the mend and feeling somewhat better. I'm grateful to be healthy and hope to remain active but dare I say it, aging is not for sissies.

Andy G.

[Angela M...]

Hey Andy, yes old age is not for sissies as we face health problems with our aging bodies but we just live life to the fullest as best we can. Once we retire fully we need to stay active and that is something I need to work on again after being almost house bound laying around for the past month. I can only imagine how it is for Betty being so active before and now housebound too. Went to the doctors Tuesday and I have lost 22 LBs. just being sick and having no appetite so he sent me for blood work today and insisted I get more exercise and start eating better and keep moving for my joint pain. I have been pretty lazy for awhile now. Anyway glad to hear you are doing OK and looking forward to full retirement soon. More time for reading and Art.
Betty, I sure wish we lived closer and I could help you out with the kitties and your errands also. My sister-in-law has had COPD for a few years now and she will still not quit smoking. She has only one lung at full capacity with the other scarred badly from a serious bout of Flu but she says she likes smoking so she will just cut down a bit. Some people just wont face reality.

[samantha1]

Glad to hear you are on the mend from shingles.I have had shingles a few times and all the times that i had it i was scratching them as it itches and causing them to bleed .So bad is shingles i donot wish them on people.I smoke 20 per day which costs me allot and have done for 40 years.I  have a chest xray every 6 months and so far no signs of problems or shadows on my chest.

[Betty]

My sister-in-law has had COPD for a few years now and she will still not quit smoking.

That's crazy. It's one thing to be  a light smoker, occasional smoker, or only smoking the lowest tar, safest stuff, but went you start getting real physical effects & damage from smoking, & refuse to stop, that's just an insane addiction that they really need to quit.

With only one good lung left she should be staying as far away from cigarette smoke, other smoke, & any pollutants as she can. I have a brother like that. It wasn't until he was down to 1 lung, & had a battle with cancer twice that he finally quit smoking.

Maybe she could switch to the electronic cigarettes. They're safer than smoke. Then they make lower nicotine refills to help wean you off the addiction too.

Many years before I quit, I got down to only a pack a week, & then a pack a month thanks to electronic cigarettes. That was way back when nobody heard of them in America, & they had to be imported from Europe or Asia.

Then one day when I didn't have any cigarettes, & I just never got around to buying more anymore. I got the electronic cigarettes down to a few puffs several times a day. Then eventually went days or a week without touching them.

When I moved to a smaller place, I never bothered to unpack them. They still sit in a box untouched in a back closet all these years.

Seriously, if somebody is showing any signs of lung or heart problems, or is getting older, stay away from smoking, smoke, other pollutants, & fumes. You must keep your air as clean as possible. In case of heart problems or failure, you can use all the extra O2 you can get.

I smoke 20 per day which costs me allot and have done for 40 years.

As you get older your lung efficiency drops dramatically, & continues to drop at a rapid rate in older people. The worse thing you can do is smoke or do other things that speed up that degradation even faster.

Light, sane, moderate smoking is safe enough for younger people. You have to stay away from that stuff or quit it when you get older though.

The price with tax on that stuff is a fortune too. In my state I think it's up to about $10 a pack. Before all the federal & state taxes, they're only 25-49 cents a pack. A pack a day habit is $300 a month in my state. But it's the government making a fortune on the taxes from them, not the tobacco companies.

[samantha1]

betty,
i gave up for 3 years ,but something happened and suddenly i started again.

[Betty]

It's a hard addiction to quit. I tried over several decades to quit, often going for months smoke-free, before snapping back. But after each time I quit, I smoked less when than before when I started again, so was doing less damage. And every time I quit it got a little easier, & stayed off the smoke a little longer.

By the time I had quit tobacco for good, I was hardly using tobacco much anymore. I wasn't even trying to quit them. With the electronic cigarettes, it just to be that tobacco was a nasty unnecessary messy expense I could live without. One day I just ran out of real cigarettes, & just never got around to buying more.

Getting used to not smoking, just made it easier to eventually give up those electronic cigarettes too. When I moved to a smaller place, I just never bothered unpacking them.

These days, most places won't rent to a smoker, won't hire a smoker, & won't insure smokers.

Now even many parks & outdoor places ban smoking. That's very odd. It is just pointless "feel good" laws for uninformed people to make it look like the rule makers are doing something right. Most of these parks & other outdoor places banning smoking are surrounded by streets, roads, highways or have parking lots.

A single small car idling in the parking lot for a minute pumps billions of times more pollution & toxic stuff bad for your lungs than dozens of smokers in a park. So banning smoking outdoors is utter nonsense & pointless scientifically speaking. It's like trying to put out a forest fire with an eyedropper. Your underarm deodorant & farts are more dangerous to your lungs than someone smoking outside.

Even if you're several miles downwind of a vehicle running, you're inhaling stuff many times worse than outdoor cigarette smoke. But you can see & smell the cigarette smoke, but can't see & smell the more dangerous car exhaust unless you're right at the tailpipe getting fatal doses of it. So they outlaw what you can see for the stupid people to love them for it.

[samantha1]

betty,i agree that smoking is bad for you ,but i am coming up to 63 in a few days and i work helping in a shop where cigarrettes are sold,which is a temptation too smoke,although i only smoke half and the other is either thrown away or burn itself out.i will try again too give up using free  nicotine patches supplied by the government

[Angela M...]

Well Samantha 1 we all know it is bad for our health but my old mom smoked 20-25 a day lighting one off the other and she lived to be 90. The air in the house was blue but she never quit. My father stopped smoking in his early forties and died of Lung Cancer from second hand smoke when he was 73 and even that did not stop mom. My sister-in-law is going to electronic smokes I think.