My wife, Cathy, sat with me in the doctor\u2019s office. I needed her there. It was hard for me to process what was being said. When you don\u2019t get enough oxygen in your lungs, it affects your brain too. After three years of seeing specialist after specialist with no diagnosis, I was depressed. I was constantly sick, too weak to help around the house, struggling for every breath and so exhausted I could barely work.<\/p>\n
The doctor looked up from my chart, peered over his glasses and said, \u201cSean, from all that you\u2019ve said and what the tests show, I think you have the beginnings of COPD.\u201d<\/p>\n
COPD. <\/em>Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It was like getting a death sentence. I\u2019d read enough to know: There was no cure. It could only get worse. I\u2019d be wheezing till the end. Cathy held my hand. She asked a few questions, but I hardly heard the answers. I wanted to get out of that office as fast as I could. COPD\u2014the worst news I could have imagined.<\/p>\n I\u2019d watched both of my parents die of lung-related diseases. They puffed on cigarettes all day long. Dad would fall asleep with a cigarette in his mouth\u2014 amazing the house didn\u2019t burn down. He owned a tile-setting company, and my brothers and I helped in the family business. Inhaling clouds of powdered cement, breathing in construction debris. Dad\u2019s first bout with cancer came when he was 40\u2014and yet he lived another 48 years, hauling around an oxygen tank with him. Mom was diagnosed with emphysema decades after Dad got cancer.<\/p>\n I wasn\u2019t going to be like them. I had smoked in my early twenties, then given it up. I was intent on living healthily<\/a>. I ran marathons, swam at the Y, worked out at the gym, played soccer with my buddies, tossed a football with our kids. Call me a fitness fanatic. That\u2019s fine by me. I wanted to rewrite the family script.<\/p>\n