My mom has been dealing with COPD for a long time too, and was unable to quit until she had a serious lung infection. She ended up in the hospital for two months and another month in a ventilator rehad to get weaned from a trake, and other medically necessary procedures at the time.
Then about 6 months later she was diagnosed with small cell in the lower left lobe with meta to the liver. She has gone through 3 rounds of chemo, and the good part is the chemo is working really well, but the bad part is she has very bad pains in her back due to osteoporosis, which I believe results from the long use of the medicines used to treat the COPD.
The chemo makes her tired, but it's the COPD exaccerbations that scare me more these days. It seems like she is getting intabated more frequently and it takes a toll, because you get overall so weak from all the days in the hospital bed not moving.
I'm sorry if my post sounds a bit jumping around the points but my mom has touched on so many of the points everyone has mentioned in their posts I wanted to give a brief history of her situation.
I have never smoked so truly I don't know how difficult it is to quit. However, I do believe it has a lot to do with will power. I've seen people quit cold turkey in my family and they never lit up again, and those are the family members that never smoked again. It's terrible to give up the way my mom did, but maybe that's the only way for some to quit.
My mom is going in for round 4 of chemo now, but I sure wish she could gain a bit more strength first, but small cell is so aggressive that they don't recommend waiting too long.
Good luck to you, and I hope God gives you the strength you need to quit.View Thread