Videos on Lung Diseases

Blausen Medical videos about lung disease, from the site www.About.com

How Lungs Function
COPD
Emphysema
Bronchiectasis
Congestive Heart Failure
Bronchodilators
Inhalers

Pop No Wheelies on an EasyGlider

Electric Easy Glider: My Chariot Has Arrived | GroovyGreen.com





If you have an illness like COPD and are looking for a scooter or electric wheelchair, this might be a cool and affordable alternative if you are able to stand upright OK. Check out this:

"If you yearn to travel the streets of your town reenacting the procession of a festive Roman Triumph (sans slave holding a golden wreath above your head), look no further than the assistance of the Electric Easy Glider. This one-wheeled 380-watt electric scooter features a detachable footbridge that visibly mimics a chariot style stance. It will travel about 15 miles on a single charge (at a top speed of 13mph) and can be juiced back into service in about three to four hours. Including your choice of five colors, expect this one to retail for somewhere around $1300 when it hits the States this fall. As the rest of the Internet has declared; 'it’s way cooler than the Segway.'"

COPD Food for Thought

Nutritional Guidelines for People With COPD

Feeding your body is pretty simple until an illness like COPD enters the picture. COPD requires more calories for breathing so getting the proper nutrition is vital. This article sums it up nicely. Whether you need to gain or lose, cut salt or caffeine, or add fluids, there is plenty to learn in here to help manage this disease.

SUGGESTED SEQUENCE FOR USE OF MULTIPLE INHALERS

Suggested Sequence of Use for Medical Inhalers

http://www.emphysema.net/inhaler_sequence.htm



This site provides a suggested sequence, in chart form, for using popular short and/or long -acting medical inhalers. COPD sufferers and others with lung disease will find this information useful and may want to print it out for future reference.

Never Too Old

Great wisdom! Thanks AngelAngel!

The Kindness of Stranger-Angels

My breathing has gone steadily downhill. COPD, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease does that to a body. First you can't walk quite as fast as you used to. Then not quite so far. Before you know it, you start skipping certain things you used to do because you tell yourself you just don't have the energy for it anymore. After all, we tell ourselves, we're aging. The truth is, COPD is gaining control over our very breath. And we need to start keeping up with that fact and monitoring it more carefully.

To that end I wanted to get an oximeter, a device that fits over your fingertip and measures the amount of oxygen in your blood. It tells you how well you are breathing. But the price is steep, nearly $300 US. And insurance usually will not cover it. My budget took a hit last March when one of my dogs fell gravely ill - he recovered - but the budget didn't. Buying one new was out of the question.

So I tried the FreeCycle Yahoo group. It's a marvelous program for people in your local area to recycle items rather than throw them away or sell them. I placed my carefully worded ad and got- nothing. Well, not exactly nothing, I got something: a lead to E-Bay where another FreeCycle member had found an oximeter for a more reasonable price, but still out of my range. I blessed her for contacting me however and sharing her information with me. She was my first Stranger-Angel. Her name is Laura.

Still I was without any real hope of getting what I needed. So I sent up a little peep of prayer, "Help Lord!", then went about my business. Days and weeks passed. I was blogging more and started volunteering on a newsletter for those with breathing issues. Kept me out of trouble and my mind off myself. Till one evening on StumbleUpon, a social networking site, I got this instant message.

It's my practice to acknowledge people who visit my site with a "Hi, Thanks for stopping by". I didn't know it then but I had been visited by my second Stranger-Angel. His name turned out to be Terry. And "Voila!" , he asked if I would like an oximeter. Out of the blue! By the kindness of strangers and the working of angels here on earth, God had answered my prayer through this kind-hearted man.

He had visited my blog several times because of my occasional COPD content. Both his mother and his wife had passed away of COPD within almost a year of one another. Yet through his pain he had the grace to offer a goodwill gift of such value to me, a complete stranger. The Lord works in mysterious ways, and I got to see that close up this time. I am one blessed woman, with two new friends. And I'll soon have a much better handle on my breathing. So remember to be polite- you never know when you might be entertaining angels.

Guest Blog: Breathe

From CherishMe
(Aidin - 2007):

Breathe.

[sleazy, like smoke]

Breathe.

[easy, provoked]

Breathe

[cheaply, for granted]

Breathe.

[deeply, enchanted]

More on COPD For Your Viewing Pleasure

Cruised YouTube this weekend for more COPD videos and hit the Motherlode. Hope they prove helpful to you in your struggle with this disease, or will inform you about it. Here they are...

(Embedded version not available)
YouTube - COPD in the Summer

(Embedded version not available)
YouTube - Women and COPD



YouTube - Asthma COPD and Risk of Anesthesia, TIVA



YouTube - Living With COPD Part 3 Diaphragmatic Breathing



YouTube - Living With COPD Part 4 Stress Management Segment 1

I'd Be A Rich Woman...

If I had a nickel for every time I heard "But you don't LOOK sick"...

COPD YouTube Video Goodies

Today I spent some time strolling through YouTube for some COPD goodies. Here are the best of the bunch for your viewing pleasure and eddymacation:

COPD from Campbell Teaching
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HttxNPQ6SzM



COPD II from Campbell Teaching
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqdE1Mh2PC0



Living With COPD with Michael Riser
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5EfAmGeEqg



Living WIth COPD Part 2 Pursed Lip Breathing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFqrWVeskR0



Cured Meat Danger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ_-2MFCHFs

COPD Webring

I just did some HTML editing to get a vertical layout for the COPD Webring I just joined, shown on the sidebar. Click away and learn more about COPD, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, one of the leading killers in the United States.

Not a pleasant subject perhaps but you will meet many pleasant people in the Ring and educate yourself to boot. The life you save may be your own or that of someone dear to you.

Being Appreciated

Let's face it, writing is a lonely business. It's you and a blank page or empty screen, waiting for words that sometimes just won't come, often with a deadline looming over the right shoulder.

And blogs can be the worst, not knowing if anyone out there besides family and friends is reading what you've toiled over, sweated over, cussed over and polished as best you might.

So I was thrilled to get an encouraging note from a fellow writer and coincidentially fellow COPD sufferer, Kwrenb. She added my blog to her COPD pages and I added her COPD pages to my permanent links. If you get a chance, check out her writing site as well. She has a real gift for words I think you'll enjoy.

And if you're a writer too, drop her and me a line. We have to keep up one another's spirits in the lonely writing world!

Now C'mon Guys

"Drawing Impairment Predicts COPD Mortality"

(Medscape- you must be a member to view the article there but anyone may join)

"An inability to "copy drawings with landmarks," a standard feature of neuropsychological tests, is associated with an increased risk of death in patients with severe COPD, according to a report in the December issue of Chest."

Now c'mon guys, let's get real. I thought this article was a practical joke when I saw the headline but it's deadly -sorry I couldn't help myself- serious.

I'm far from being dead but I cop to a severe inability to copy drawings with landmarks even on my best days at any age. Let me state it more strongly. If I were to channel Leonardo da Vinci I still wouldn't be able to draw anything with landmarks. I max out at stick figures on gallows, and even those look pretty crappy.

Put a drawing pencil in my hand and I freeze, reverting to four years old and that jumbo crayon. Figures of people have eyes on the side of their heads and noses in the vicinity of their left shoulders. Houses have that squiggle of smoke coming from a pointy roof and crosses in something sort of like a square for window panes. Doors are more like hobbit holes. And poor doggies or kitties look like cotton balls on toothpicks tapping their way through the scenery.

Draw? Not I. So does that make me ready to die? I don't think so. I think you need to tie your statistics to something called common sense instead of nonsense, then we'll talk about valid prognosticators of mortality.

The Diet Blues

As promised -or threatened- here are my thoughts on dieting, influenced by recent events in my life.

On December 20th I made my annual pilgrimage to Shands Hospital in Gainesville, Florida, to check on the status of my lungs. I have COPD, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. It is a progressive disease, slowly (usually) worsening with time. I rely on experts like my doctors to tell me where I'm at as far as possibly needing a lung transplant.

This year although my numbers were worse than last year's, I still do not meet the criteria for transplant, thank goodness. But I got some bad news too. If I were to crash and burn number-wise through a sudden worsening of my lungs, I still would not qualify for transplant. The culprit? My weight.

Overweight is associated with poor prognosis for lung transplant, from the surgery itself to the long, physically demanding recovery afterwards. So I have to lose some thirty-plus pounds just to meet the minimum standard for my height. I have to meet this goal weight just in case I run into a problem down the road. I've seen two friends this year go from relatively fine one day to hospitalized and in one case dead in the period of a week. So I have to be proactive.

I foresee an extended period of carrot and celery sticks with a side of major lifestyle changes tossed in for good measure. So I turn to humor for inspiration, hence the poem. If you have any good ones, please send them my way! My grumbling stomach will appreciate it. Weight Watchers and South Beach, here I come!