LIVING WITH COPD: ‘I KEPT SMOKING FOR YEARS AFTER DIAGNOSIS. I ENJOYED IT’

I was 14 when I started smoking. A friend of mine had started and it seemed pretty cool to do. There were no warnings about the dangers back then. When I was young, a bus would go past and on the side there would be an advertisement for Capstan Full Strength or Benson and Hedges.

I used to steal my dad’s cigarettes. He knew I used to do it and caught me out. I used to tell blatant lies. I started with several a day, if that, but by the time I was 18 and earning my own wage I was buying 10 cigarettes a day. That increased to 20 a day as life’s stresses came – children, work – so you end up smoking more. I probably got up to 25 a day which is a lot, daily, and I smoked for 45 years.

I used to work as a teacher at the primary school I attended in Miles Platting, Manchester, and the one where all my own children attended too. When my daughter, Chezni, was seven they brought in people to talk about the dangers of smoking. At the end of the day she asked me if I’d give up smoking “because I don’t want you to die”. So I did at that time.

We went to North Manchester General Hospital together with one of the no smoking nurses – there wasn’t any no smoking campaigns like there are now – and always remember her talk. She mentioned how, if they discover high CO2 levels in schools, they can go into the school and shut it down.

I then had to blow into a CO2 device and had a high score. Chezni looked at the nurse, burst into tears and said: “You’re not going to shut my mummy down, are you?” The impact of that was huge. I stopped smoking for seven years.

But then my dad moved in with me in 1996 after my mum died. He lived with me for about 17 years and I nursed him through to the end of his life in a hospital bed, in my living room. I lived in that room 24/7. One day I ended up reaching for a cigarette. I’d sit with him smoking throughout the night because my dad was dying. It still upsets me today.

Unfortunately, I continued to smoke until 2022 when I was hospitalised with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). I’d actually been diagnosed with the condition in my early forties – I’m 61 now – and was told one of the best things I could do was to give up smoking. I continued to try but just wasn’t successful.

I used to tell my family I’d given up smoking and then go and lock myself in the bathroom and have one, practically hanging out of the window from my waist thinking that no one would ever notice. We lived on a fairly long avenue at the time and I remember my husband coming into the house. He asked me how I was doing with the smoking. I’d say I was doing fine but then he’d ask: “Was that not you hanging out of the bathroom window when I pulled onto the avenue?” I’d have to feign innocence.

I enjoyed smoking, as sad as that seems. I had a habit and I enjoyed it. And that made it even harder to give up. I didn’t know anything about COPD. I was just given a Ventolin inhaler at the time for use if I do get breathless. That was it, really.

It didn’t actually affect me greatly at the time, so it didn’t seem like it would affect my future. I was so engaged in my career as a teacher and my family life that I didn’t think about smoking and its effects. That was unfortunate. I think now: “Why didn’t you do something back then? Why didn’t you take it seriously.”

Sometimes I hated the smell of smoking. I did use to feel the effects badly whenever I had a cold and it got onto my chest. I would have a cough for months afterwards, but I continued to smoke. Once that cold disappears and you feel better it just goes out of your mind again.

One day last June I woke up, it was still dark, and just felt like dying. I couldn’t catch my breath at all. I walked from the bedroom to the landing and managed a shout to my daughter, who called 999. The first thing the paramedics did was put me on oxygen. Even with the oxygen I could not breathe. I have never been as scared in all my life.

I was admitted to The Royal Oldham Hospital and stayed for 10 days. They told me I had respiratory failure too. The doctor said: ”You have got to stop smoking.” I just didn’t know how I was going to do it.

I came home with a load of antibiotics and a steroid you’re given immediately if you have COPD and a chest infection to help the lungs stay a bit stronger. I realised I had to do something. I was on the nicotine chewing gums and the lozenges. Although they were taking the cravings away I felt like I needed to do something with my hands. There was no chance I was going to start knitting.

I went to one of the vape shops and got some of them. I’ve never wanted a cigarette since. I did go back into the hospital that month with my COPD. The rest of the year was very difficult. There are some days I get up and I am so breathless, making it difficult to do just simple things like making yourself a cup of tea.

I fell terribly ill in June this year. I had a fever and was rushed to the Royal Oldham again. This time I was in A&E and a doctor asked me if I’d signed a “do not resuscitate” order. I asked whether I was going to die and became incredibly anxious, which wasn’t helping my breathing at all.

He rang my daughter in the early hours of the morning and I thought he was telling her to come in because I was dying. He said the CO2 levels inside my body had got so high that it was making me poorly. I had to breathe into a machine with a mask. I looked like an astronaut. I was terrified. All I wanted to do was rip it off.

I had to do that for up to 14 hours a time – I was using a non-invasive ventilator. When they were sending me home I could see on the discharge notes they’d put “high risk of readmission”. And I was back again the following month for 10 days, back on the machine. By this stage the doctor said I needed the machine at home.

I was eventually referred to Wythenshawe Hospital and my sats [oxygen saturation level] were 76. A healthy person has between 95-100, someone with COPD should be between 88-92. The doctor said he just couldn’t let me go home. The rest of my organs were having to compensate for the lack of oxygen, so I was admitted again, this time far from home. I felt totally and utterly isolated.

I was discharged on 21 September with a non-invasive ventilator machine and, touch wood, since then I have stayed at home. I do have to use the machine every single night and that affects me. I’m divorced now and can’t see myself having another relationship. If I want to go on holiday abroad I have to go to the hospital and do a lung function test to see what it would be – as when you go on an aeroplane I might need in-flight oxygen.

Everything in my life now is all based around my lung function, what I can and can’t do. That’s incredibly hard. I was a teacher up until March 2020 earning good money. To all of a sudden be on benefits and on universal credit… what a shock to the system.

Debbie is part of Greater Manchester’s Make Smoking History campaign highlighting that up to two in three smokers will die early if they don’t take the steps to quit. For more information visit: https://makesmokinghistory.co.uk/

2023-11-18T08:02:15Z dg43tfdfdgfd