Jake's Flea Market

My medical condition is Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

There is severe impairment with my breathing function.

I live with a constant sense of congestion in my lungs. There are efforts to cough the phlegm up several times a day, but it seems easiest to cough it up after I go to bed. The COPD cough is not a normal cough: It’s the deep cough of someone trying to cough out the contents of their lungs. When I’m with company and I start coughing, I’m looked at with concern. I try to sit down to cough because with the successful coughing up of sputum I get lightheaded and dizzy. But even with coughing, the congestion in the lungs and the difficulty with breathing are never entirely alleviated.

Breathing difficulties are worst with exposure to cold air. After having acquired my Security Licence earlier in February, on February 25^th of this year I started work with the Commissionaires as a security guard. Though I’d discussed the limitations I had, as a result of having COPD with the employer during the interview, within the first hour, I was walked into a walk- through freezer in a meat packing plant. It wasn’t long before I was begging my trainer for directions to the nearest door out of the freezer: I couldn’t breathe. It felt like I was suffocating— like it does when I’m outside for too long in January when it’s minus twenty or minus thirty degrees Celsius. I was sent home from that jobsite in the first hour.

But as temperatures rise, the breathing gets easier. Today is May 13^th: The temperature outside is twenty degrees Celsius. I’ve just returned home from an hour of walking in the neighborhood. I stopped several times to calm my breathing, and through the whole time I employed the pursed lip breathing technique: Without using the pursed lip breathing technique, I wouldn’t be able to walk for any length of time or for any distance— not from the house to the car, nor for an hour of walking in the mall, nor for walking a half hour in the neighborhood. I’ve also learned not to push myself to walk too fast: By controlling the amount of exertion I expose myself to, it seems I enable myself to walk longer and farther. It is while walking or exerting myself that I am most aware of a tightness in my chest.                         

Over exertion leads to a shortness of breath and a gasping for air. On the first of this month, I started a new job as a front desk agent at the Knight’s Inn. One of the job requirements was the washing, drying, folding, and putting away of motel linens. Part of this process included the carrying of baskets of laundry up and down a flight of stairs. By the third trip I was beginning to get short of breath, and by the end of the fourth trip I was gasping for air. I’ve learned to reduce or eliminate the amount I carry to reduce or eliminate the amount of exertion I put on myself— carrying half bags of groceries from the car to the house instead of full bags. But to do that as an employee with baskets of laundry would make me inefficient as a worker— one who didn’t get all his duties completed. The lady who was training me finished the laundry. After one shift, I told the employer that I wouldn’t be able to perform all the requirements of the position and resigned.  

As the development of COPD in my lungs has progressed, I’ve adapted to the changes in my condition. There are seasons in which the Southern Alberta wind blows constantly. It could be that the wind churns up dust and pollen and disturbs pollutants on the ground; and it could be that the wind I’m walking into is pushing more air into my lungs than my lungs can handle. All I know is covering my face or wearing a mask reduces the shortness of breath I experience when the wind blows. My lungs are extremely sensitive to my environment. It’s when it’s humid outside that I become most aware of the congestion in my lungs. And after I’ve taken a shower, I take a couple of puffs of ventolin to counteract the congestion. Along with medications, there are adaptations that help me live with the progression of COPD: And those adaptations begin with an acceptance of the limitations the disease causes to gradually occur in my life.