THE SECRET TO THRIVING WITH COPD: A UNIQUE PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE FROM A MEDICAL PROFESSIONAL AND A LATE-STAGE PATIENT

If you have been diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, this book is nothing less than a manual on how to save your own life.

THE SECRET TO THRIVING WITH COPD is written in two voices. Rachel Garrod is a twenty-five-year veteran in the battle against pulmonary disease. Dawn Lawson was diagnosed as “very end-stage” in January of 2015 and told she would not live out the week.

We will explain pulmonary rehabilitation. What it is and how you can use it not only to keep the health you have you have, but to regain some of the health you have lost. We will attempt to explain why, in so many cases, it is a secret.

Rachel Garrod was at the forefront of pulmonary rehabilitation. She found herself, time and again, trying to climb over a wall of medical professionals who insisted that sick people should stay sick. She has participated in hundreds of studies that prove conclusively that rehab works, and she continues to help people diagnosed with COPD find the road to health.

Sadly, that mindset still exists. Ongoing rehab, for the most part, is not available.

Dawn Lawson found out about pulmonary rehabilitation from Facebook. When she asked for a referral, she was told she was “too sick”. Facebook told her “They are wrong. Fight for it.” She did, and two respiratory therapists and an exercise physiologist literally brought her back from the dead.

A typical internet search on COPD gives you inhaler ads, the four stages, and tells you that COPD is a disease that worsens over time.

Pulmonary rehabilitation can turn COPD into a manageable condition that improves over time.