Dawn for Patient Testimonials

Speaker: Dawn

Dawn: Hi, my name is Dawn. I am 58 years old. I'm from Oneida of the Nations of the Thames. I am Bear Clan. That's it.

Dawn: Ok. So I'm gonna talk about my diagnosis. I was diagnosed when I was 40 years old. I have, I smoked before I quit smoking when I was 49. So I haven't smoked for about almost 10 years now. Um,

Dawn: OK, so I'm gonna talk about the challenges that I've come across from having COPD. One of the major challenges I have is a social challenge. I used to like to go places and interact with people and go to the parks and go to the mall and just even, you know, look around the mall and walk around the mall. I don't have the confidence to do those things anymore with having breathing problems. I don't like to be stuck someplace or it's embarrassing to be someplace and people are concerned if you're ok or not because you, you, you obviously can't catch your breath or you can't, you know, you look breathless. So I don't like to go those places. That's one of the biggest challenges I have is like getting social activity. Other challenges I have are like I have challenges at home doing basic tasks sometimes, you know, vacuuming or standing long to do the dishes or, you know, like things like that making your bed is a, is a challenge. It can take me all day to, to change, you know, to make my bed especially the fitted sheets trying to get it under your bed. It's like wrestling a bear when you have COPD. Let me see. I guess playing with the kids and, you know, stuff like that is keeping up, like going to the concert with my granddaughter and her school is huge, huge school. So the concert was at one in one auditorium in one wing and then we had to walk all the way over where they had the refreshments in their, in their Christmas concert thing. I mean, they're like their gift gift giving and like walking that I had to tell them, ok, stop for a minute. They're going to sit for a second and, you know, and my daughter kept saying slow down, you know, grandma slow. But yeah, those are like some of the challenges that I, that COPD represents itself in life.

Dawn: Ok, how has Best Care impacted my life? It has made I've had a lot of support and a lot of education by coming to see the educator. He's taught me different things that I didn't know before, wasn't aware of. He's given me a lot of support when it comes to, my, my medicines and my exercise programs and the things that are available to me, the resources. So, yeah, I really appreciate the Best Care educator.

Dawn: I guess the message that I would have about the Best Care program is that I wish for everybody to have equal opportunity despite of where they live or, the color of their skin. or their gender, that they get the Best Care program if they need it.