When working, and doing my training, I had loads of teachers, and something that stuck in my mind "would teach, but no good in practice" So when I got into the position of teaching or any of the educational roles either patient or for student nurses etc, I used to think what I enjoyed, and then looked at pet hates and fears. If we do not like something, or fear of hurting self or others, we would automaticaly not want to learn. Hence denial is a big problem with development of all conditions not just loss, we infact will deny for anything that may make us feel guilty, lets face it we are encouraged to do it by our financial institutions deny responsibility.
Often at school I never understood the simple reasons behind many peculiarities in life, I also believed even with the most complex issues there would be a very simple explanation to health problems, yet never given, hence most of my writings, such as grief, and in total 20 plus on various subjects, I did so as the client and carers could understand what was being achieved. After all if we do not know where we are going, or how we are to get their, we will be frightened, as such that in itself is a reason not to go. Other wise complete failure for all, in psychiatry we often found the reason for not changing would often be due to poor explanation of what was expected.
When I was doing any cognitive work with clients, I had to make a special attention to relatives, as if they are not on board, they could only too often sabotage what I was trying to achieve. Ironic my first teaching roles in community, was trying to teach relaxation therapy and breathing exercises, so as to lower dependancy on medication just to lower blood pressure, yet basic physical teaching could take upto 100 hours to fully achieve, needless to say a very expensive option. So my writings were used, as a way to reduce the amount of physical time. I then looked at other ways to teach a better practice of breathing, and found swimming, especialy diving, would do more than I could achieve in months.
In your case, of getting attached to cpap, and managing copd, there are very many similarities to panic style breathing which often is very short and using only the upper lobes of the lungs, especialy if lower loabs are loaded with fluid, as most surely the case with copd and sadly dare I mention smoking.
I have never been a person to turn over to die if something crops up, in your case, I believe if you become more aware of limitations of copd has on your good health, you will learn not to expect too much too fast, and give yourself more time to achieve your personal aim. in our case getting attached to cpap, and managing our drowsiness.
I am sure every doctor would also say we have to start at the beginning of any journey, but for some of us the bginning of that journey with health problems, are never where we want it to be or the same as the next person. In your case keep smilling, and remember each day is just another day to find a small achievement, or to rest from the last one before we turn that next bend, but do not think as everybody else is racing around I am lazy. Instead remember cars have breaks and health is often just the breaking system for us mear humans, so you have applied your breaks to look around and witness what is going on around yourself.
