..........
..........My husband is now living with Emphysema........... He is 59 years old he grew up in a small coal mining town, at age 11 moved to the rubber factory city of the world. When it snowed it soon turned black and this is what we breathed.
........Charlie joined the Navy at the old age of 17, in the 20 years he was in the Navy he was exposed to deadly paint particles when they sand blasted the deck paint for the ship deck, aboard the Air Craft Carrier York Town. He worked with nuclear weapons
......Was also exposed to the Christmas Island Nuclear testing. The men were told to see how the ship would withstand the blast.
..........He also spent 2 years as a fire fighter instructor being exposed to the thick black smoke day after day that his students only had to go through once.
........He has had two Aunts and his mother die from Emphysema.
......He has been a smoker since he was 15 years old.
A lot of risk factors for one person!
...... This winter was the worst for him, it was all he could do to stand at this point in the progression of the Emphysema he either does OK or very badly.
.......This is summer time now and he is doing very well, we have seen a big improvement sense we added Co-Q10 to his daily medications. What ever it is we are grateful for how it has helped!
........ Thanks to the Internet I have gotten more information than I was ever able to get before.
-------------It has been two years now seance I have added to this page....
Charlie has had the best two years now out of ten years of dealing with all that goes with COPD. He even went through the bad bug that hit everyone so hard the first of the year 2000.... He got sick but started right away on his prednisone and was able to fight it off better then the rest of us.....(the first time ever) I got pneumonia and was down for a long time. The hospitals were all full so Charlie was the only one still on his feet to take care of "ME".
We have had a set back with his weight he has always been thin and with no reserve so his weight can be a real problem to maintain. The more the emyphsema progresses the harder his hart and lungs have to work the more callories he burns.... I now give him 3000 "extra" calories a day and he is slowly putting weight back on.....
I have joined the care givers group for COPD on the Internet and it has been of great help to us both I have learned so much from the other caregivers and it has been such a comfort to know that there are others who know and understand what is happening and are there for us both........
Although we have been dealing with this for so long I know I still have so much to learn and the other caregivers are so kind to share what ever information they can with us all. Things like why he would get confused and had difficultly making proper decisions or not remembering that we just watched that movie last night! (called "Co2 buildup") I told his doctor what was happening to him and he offered us no explanation as to why this was happening.:(
Only to find out that this is what happens with emphysema you cannot get rid of the carbon dioxide a very simple explanation but one the doctor did not feel he needed to explain to us in all this time! Leaving us to feel like this was just a problem with Charlie. :( :(
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------It has been so long scene I have added to this page. Charlie is now 72 years old now, meaning he has been dealing with emphysema for 23 years now. (I will be adding the events of the years.)