Ten Ways to Beat COPD - Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease How is it possible to beat COPD? You have been diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease - COPD. You are among millions of patients and there is no cure. If you are like I was the first few years, you can spend a lot of time being depressed about it;…
Buying Athletic Shoes For An Old Man Buying athletic shoes didn't used to be so hard. In my youthful 20s and 30s and even into my mid-life 40s, shoe buying was fun and easy. I was the trend setter among my peers and I didn't mind being a bit daring. Bold colors and styles didn't bother me. Sometimes the local…
I am new - real new - to the blubber burning /slash/ body building /slash/ workout /slash/ nutrition scene. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've worked out a day in my life (okay, maybe during high school P.E. and Army Basic Training). Yesterday I joined a fitness club and went to a kickboxing aerobics class... Wait, let…
For as many years as I have been writing, I never once thought I would write about my own Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Hell, I wouldn’t even discuss PTSD with the several counselors or shrinks I had seen over the years since my return from Vietnam. I didn’t even talk about PTSD in AA meetings. Not until I was diagnosed with emphysema in 2005 and after 3 years of serious depression, I sought out a shrink through the VA to help me battle my thoughts of dying, maybe by suicide. Even then, I found it very difficult to talk about PTSD (more…)
I was diagnosed with COPD (emphysema) in 2005. A couple years later, after I had lost my business, my home and much of my ability to do normal physical activities, I asked 2 different doctors to tell me how much time I had left. Both said (reluctantly) approximately the same thing: 2 or 3 years. Of all the meds and treatments prescribed to me, pulmonary rehab was not one of them.
That was 10 years ago. Yes, I’m very happy to still be alive. Very. But I also struggle every day, sometimes for every breath. The simplest things have become difficult – taking a shower, walking the isles of the grocery store, searching for my next great photograph. (more…)
Back in the early 80s, I found an interest in photography. I bought the latest Canon film camera, an A-1, lenses, filters and an assortment of other gear. The hobby began, as many of my hobbies do, with research and plenty of reading and, in this case, looking at the pictures of many photography artists of that time. My enthusiasm also took me to school - I enrolled in a B&W photography course at a college in San Mateo, near where I was living at the time.
This is the best toothpick ever! It’s a Poly Pik, which is a very difficult to find brand, unless you want to order 500 at a time. I can’t remember where or when I found my first Poly Pik (this product is branded Flents on the packaging), but it was years ago and I have been using the same 4 Toothpix all that time. Well, actually, I use only one at a time, but I keep one in my car and another at my desk. I used to keep one in my wallet too, but that just didn’t seem right – people would stare when I’d pull the thing outa my wallet (more…)
It seems like a fairly innocuous question. I get asked that question every time I am out gliding about on my Segway. I know it’s an unusual device, especially where I live – I think I’m the only one in Plumas County, CA that has one, or uses one regularly. But I sure wish people would think about that question before they blurt it out.
What would be your reaction if a stranger walked up to you and asked how much you paid for your car? A person you have never met comes up and asks, “what’d you pay for your watch?” Someone stops you in your tracks and says, “how much you pay for that bike/ring on your finger/bag of groceries? (more…)
In my years of working with adults with developmental disabilities, I also dealt with many people with physical disabilities and with mental illness. Sometimes, they had all three! One thing I learned for sure is that you don’t have to have a developmental disability to have other disabilities. People who have an onset of a severe physical disability, whether it’s an obvious disability such as the loss of a limb or your sight, or less noticeable such as heart trouble or the loss of lung function, can easily slip into depression. And depression is serious stuff.
We all get “depressed” at times, but (more…)
Three years ago, one of my doctors at the Veterans Hospital in Reno, NV told me I had 2, maybe 3 years left. I am very happy to be here to show you that doctors ain’t always right.
Yes, I still do have COPD (Emphysema). Some doctors call it late stage, some end stage, others call it severe COPD. Whatever stage it is, it means that they have prescribed for me the last, best drugs and treatment to extend my life – and my breathing – as much as possible. There is no cure, (more…)