If you could speak to your COPD…
My COPD and I go walking together… almost every day. I always tell him I’d like to walk a little bit further and it’s because of him that I can’t.
I don’t get much of a reaction.
I don’t expect to.
COPD and I have known each other since 2011 – eight years.
In reality, we probably know each other longer than that but I just didn’t recognize him in the early days. He was quiet then – he’s often quiet now.
I fact, the evening I was diagnosed at the hospital Emergency Room, I wasn’t even aware of his name.
“COPD?”
After a lengthy examination and x-rays and scans, the doctor told me the name. “COPD.”
“Is that bad?”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
After a week’s stay in the hospital Intensive Care Unit, I took COPD home with me.
I spent another week in bed at home and started reading up on him.
At first, he was unassuming. I had to remember to use oxygen while I slept, and I told him how much that pissed off Mrs. Davitt!
He didn’t care.
But as the years went on, he quietly, but persistently began to involve himself in our lives.
He was a distraction at first. I couldn’t necessarily focus on the conversations we were having with friends at dinner and such because I was worried about how shallow my breathing was becoming.
I asked him to please stop.
He ignored me.
And then, he made me give up my commute and subsequently, my job.
“Thanks a lot,” I said sarcastically.
“Hey!” he finally spoke. “How many times did Mrs. Davitt and your kids beg you to stop smoking? Huh?” he asked. “And did you? Eh? Did you?”
I asked him to stop.
“Don’t blame me,” was all he said.
It feels like each year that passes; he’s gets greedier with my oxygen.
When I mention this to him, he shrugs his shoulders. “I need it,” he replies. “You blew it. Literally.”
I once asked him when the end would come.
“Hard to say,” he replied.
“Why?” I asked.
“Depends of what you do for yourself,” he told me. “Exercise, diet, prescriptions… it can be a pretty strict regimen.”
The thing that really upsets me most (and I’d never tell him and possibly give him the satisfaction) is that in the years he’s been in my life, I’ve come to appreciate many things and many people even more than when I didn’t know him or if I hadn’t known him, I’m certain.
I was a pretty, typical self-centered father/husband. Meeting “the guys” after work in Manhattan while my wife and kids were home doing homework, was my right (I thought).
The work I did every day – the job I held to keep everyone clothed, fed and sheltered was most important (even though my wife was working at the same time!).
Not anymore.
Even though only one of the 3 kids lives at home, I think about each of them constantly and can’t wait to see them again soon.
I don’t think I was a bad father or husband. I just feel more aware of my family now – as individuals – who they are, what their needs are, what they’ve achieved and what they’d like to do with the rest of their lives.
I’m never going to admit to COPD that much of that comes from his being a constant presence in my life, my family’s collective lives, in our homes and in our activities.
I wouldn’t give the bastard the satisfaction.
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