My husband lives with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). I use “lives with” intentionally because COPD has no cure; the lungs don’t repair themselves. Eventually, they harden, limiting breathing until the heart can no longer withstand the stress. It’s a pernicious disease that kills, one way or another.
Not a happy ending to our love story, for sure. But then, all life ends the same way. It’s just about quality, how we live whatever life we’ve got, and timing.
Is there ever a good time to die? No. A bad time? Yes — like today, or tomorrow, before I’ve lived fully, before I feel truly done. Before all our “I Love You’s” are shared.
Listening to my husband struggle for breath, hearing the rattles and chugs of his lungs as he sleeps, talks, walks, does anything, is a constant reminder of death’s presence and Love’s eternal grace.
Love teaches me: I can’t avoid death. And so, I’m choosing to befriend it, or at least, to acknowledge its presence without fear and loathing colouring our interactions with dread,resistance and foreboding.
This poem is my way of grappling with its presence, and honouring my husband’s courageous fight for each breath.
Hard-won Breath
by Louise Gallagher
Hardened lungs
gasp,
struggle for air,
a painful search
for release
from disease
that chokes
each breath, hard-won
against a crown-of-thorns starfish
leaching life
from bleached coral dying
for life.
Dare Boldly 
My Mom has battled COPD for the last 30 years and is still hanging in there at 98. As Mark said so well manage the risks and use rhe meds as necessary.
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Thanks Bernie — Your mom is a beacon of light. ❤
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this is such a challenge for both of you and your words express it so well ❤
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Thank you Beth. As with all things, it is an experience best taken through Love. ❤
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Oh my heart goes out to you both. Things so many of us take for granted such as breathing every day. Enjoy every moment together each day as I know you will ……. Hopefully that ocean air helps somewhat with his breathing. Hugs.❤️
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Much gratitude Val for your kind words and presence. The ocean air – and in particular, lack of elevation, definitely help. It’s the pneumonia that’s hung around for too long that doesn’t. 😦 ❤
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Elgie, we’ve talked about this before – I’m like you, not living with COPD in the first person but ‘living with COPD just the same’. Both my parents were ‘many years non-smokers’ but their last few years were oxygen-hose dependent and we did plenty of doctoring and ER visits too. That tricky balance of many medications was not so much a nightmare as it was a day-to-day essential part of living, as that trifecta of heart-lungs-kidneys are almost always in some state of backed-up-plumbing … because the fluid is always building up somewhere … it’s nuts, but necessary. While there is ‘a good life’, there is never an ideal death or route to it. Hang in, breathe easy, avoid risks and be patient with your patient is my only advice worth sharing. Cheers, Mark
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“Hang in, breathe easy, avoid risks and be patient with your patient is my only advice worth sharing.”
Thank you. This is beautiful. ❤
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