Pauline’s COPD story helps others in booklet

A Drogheda woman who suffers from a serious respiratory condition has helped write a new booklet to assist others with the condition.

Pauline O’Neill has been living with one of Ireland’s deadliest diseases Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) since 2005, and helped develop ‘Planning for the Future with COPD’, an initiative of COPD Support Ireland and the Irish Hospice Foundation (IHF).

‘I took part in the IHF and COPD workshops to develop this booklet to help other people with the condition talk about and plan for the future,’ says Pauline, who also set up the first COPD support group in Drogheda back in 2014.

‘I was first diagnosed with the condition 13 years ago, the same year I stopped smoking. I was a very heavy smoker, from when I was 18, and I found I had been getting bad chest infections for years, which wouldn’t go away, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe or walk.’

‘If I had my time again, I would never put a cigarette in my mouth in the first place,’ she said.

COPD is an umbrella term used to describe progressive lung diseases including chronic bronchitis or emphysema. It is a long-term illness that cannot be cured.

‘I found it very difficult to talk about myself,’ admitted Pauline. ‘But, it was the best thing I have ever done in terms of accepting my condition.’

She knows how beneficial the support was to her, and hopes she can now help do the same for others with the condition.

‘It allowed me to talk about and plan everything I want for myself when the time comes,’ she adds.

‘Now, my family and friends don’t have to panic and I can go on and live my life.’