I ignored it for months because I didn’t have health insurance and doctor visits cost money I didn’t have. I treated it with over-the-counter cough syrup and honey and prayer, but it only got worse.
The day I collapsed in the grocery store parking lot, unable to breathe, unable to stand, security called an ambulance despite my protests about the cost.
The doctor who eventually saw me in the ER was a young woman with kind eyes and terrible news. She listened to my lungs, ordered tests, and sat down beside my hospital bed with a gravity that told me everything before she even spoke.
“You have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease,” she said carefully. “Your lung tissue is extensively damaged and scarred. It won’t regenerate or repair itself.”
I stared at her. “But I never smoked. Not one cigarette in my entire life.”
She nodded slowly, pulling up images on her tablet. “You said you worked in a textile factory for thirty years. That kind of chronic exposure—cotton fibers in the air, industrial cleaning chemicals, secondhand smoke from other workers in enclosed spaces—it damages lungs progressively over time. Your body has been under respiratory stress for decades.”
