I was a runner. A restaurateur. In the prime of my life. Then came the shocking diagnosis.
MY WIFE, CATHY, SAT WITH ME in the doctor’s office. I needed her there. It was hard for me to process what was being said. When you don’t get enough oxygen in your lungs, it affects your brain too. After three years of seeing specialist after specialist with no diagnosis, I was depressed. I was constantly sick, too weak to help around the house, struggling for every breath and so exhausted I could barely work.
The doctor looked up from my chart, peered over his glasses and said, “Sean, from all that you’ve said and what the tests show, I think you have the beginnings of COPD.”
COPD. Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It was like getting a death sentence. I’d read enough to know: There was no cure. It could only get worse. I’d be wheezing till the end. Cathy held my hand. She asked a few questions, but I hardly heard the answers. I wanted to get out of that office as fast as I could. COPD—the worst news I could have imagined.
I’d watched both of my parents die of lung-related diseases. They puffed on cigarettes all day long. Dad would fall asleep with a cigarette in his mouth— amazing the house didn’t burn down. He owned a tile-setting company, and my brothers and I helped in the family business. Inhaling clouds of powdered cement, breathing in construction debris. Dad’s first bout with cancer came when he was 40—and yet he lived another 48 years, hauling around an oxygen tank with him. Mom was diagnosed with emphysema decades after Dad got cancer.
I wasn’t going to be like them. I had smoked in my early twenties, then given it up. I was intent on living healthily. I ran marathons, swam at the Y, worked out at the gym, played soccer with my buddies, tossed a football with our kids. Call me a fitness fanatic. That’s fine by me. I wanted to rewrite the family script.
This story is from the November 2018 edition of Guideposts.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the November 2018 edition of Guideposts.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
EVERYDAY GREATNESS: Jessica Manfre
Uniting military and civilian communities through acts of kindness
The Cake Mixer Mishap
I should’ve listened to Mom
Star Turn
I worried about my introverted daughter. Then Olivia flipped the script
Unearthed
I pulled the overgrown remnants of my herb garden, putting it to bed for the season, and went over a mental list of all the things to do before winter began—change out the screens for storm windows, finish the yard work, bring down the draft blockers from the attic.
Confidence Builder
My five boys didn't need me to homeschool them anymore. Now I wanted to be good at something else. But could I?
Ordinary People
The story behind Norman Rockwell's celebrated painting
A Woman of Courage
After I was widowed, fear took over my life. How could I trust anyone if I couldn't trust God?
Keep on Truckin'
How to bring a couple back together: share a long-haul drive in an 18-wheeler
My Answer to Pain
Inflammation was wreaking havoc with my health. Was God trying to show me a better way to live?
Letters From Phil
My older brother and I went our separate ways: he to the Air Force, me to a marriage that didn't last. He lived a rough-and-tumble life, but that's not what really worried me