Bill Horden's Home Page
I am a long-term sufferer of COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), a combination, in my case, of emphysema, chronic bronchitis, and asthma. My condition is sufficiently severe as to require the use of supplemental oxygen, 24 hours a day.
Thanks to the rehabilitation program ("Pulmonary Wellness Program") at St. Jude Medical Center, Fullerton, California, and continued exercise and support group participation, I am fairly active and lead an interesting life.
On the subject of pulmonary rehabilitation and support groups, I call myself an "IMpatient Advocate," and have written several papers which have been well received by a large number of patients and health care providers. I expect to continue to write and to add more patient-point-of-view papers to this site.
You are invited to copy those papers that are of interest to you and to distribute copies to other interested parties UNDER THE FOLLOWING CONDITIONS:
1) the papers must be copied in their entirety, withour editing, and;
2) the papers must be distributed free of charge to the recipients.
Being no computer whiz, I have availed myself of AOL's structure and stored each of my writings on a separate website, as indicated below. I hope you explore everything and find something of interest.
"A COPD SURVIVAL GUIDE" is written for all COPD patients and their families. Many who are newly diagnosed find it expecially helpful. Because of its length, it is on two websites, which you may access by simply clicking on
THE IMPATIENT ADVOCATE and
MORE IMPATIENT ADVOCATE
You will find a "Patient's Checklist" of suggested personal data and records, together with comments on the medical profession under the URL PATIENCE, PATIENTS
Wellness Pulmonary Support Groups" address the need for long-term support groups to provide both emotional and physical support to patients with chronic disease; click on Short of Breath in San Antonio
This "Home Page" offers a list of hot-links to websites I believe helpful and, following that, in chronological order, I will offer comments, essays, or articles I have written and published on pulmonary disease, chronic disease, doctors, and related subjects.
I strongly suggest additional reading to help you better manage the disease. The following websites should be helpful:
AACVPR Members a listing of some rehab sites, with e-mail contacts
Around the Clock with COPD the Americal Lung Association primer on COPD
INHALER USE the fundamentals of Metered Dose Inhalers
Colorado HealthNet (TM) * Colorado is a great source of pulmonary information
Management of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary D... self-explanatory
The Chronic Lung Disease Forum a bulletin board of Cheshire Medical Center
Paul Marks' Home Page your personal intro to the COPD/Emphysema mailing list
RESPIRATORY ON THE WEB related websites
Patricia Wrean's Asthma and Allergy WWW Resou... related websites
BROWNson's nursing notes more related websites
Main Menu for "Second Wind"
Welcome to National Jewish Medical and Resear... a well-known treatment center
STS Discussion Forum LVRS some info about Lung Volume Reduction Surgery (LVRS)
NHLBI, NHLBI/HCFA LUNG VOLUME REDUCTION Medicare's LVRS program
Home Page of the National Emphysema Foundation
Exercise and Pulmonary Health Advice from the Nat'l Emphysema Fdn.
COPD webpage British thinking about COPD
Pulmonary Paper The website of a popular newsletter. Check it monthly.
Pulmonary Disease (Internal Medicine)
An excellent, detailed data source run by a real live doctor who tries to answer your questions, 'cause he even has e-mail.
I offer these thoughts:
If you have a debilitating chronic disease, it's only logical for you to be fearful, depressed, frustrated, angry, and to suffer a deep loss of self-esteem. It's even understandable to feel you have the right to some self-pity.
But you also have the right to redirect those energies toward managing your disease, and I'd like to help, if I can.
FOLLOWING IS AN OP-ED ARTICLE SUBMITTED TO THE SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS AND TWO WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS IN NEIGHBORING BOERNE, TEXAS, Jan. 20, 1998, and to leading newspapers in Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Abilene, and Amarillo, 1/24/98.:
An Open Letter to Senators Gramm and Hutchison and Rep. Bonilla
Somewhere in Washington, D.C., The United States of America is negotiating with a group of tobacco companies about the size of the "settlement" they have agreed to pay for selling a product that caused the disease and death of countless American citizens. The amount of the settlement is said to be about 240 billion dollars.
Also in Washington, D.C., at the very same time, the very same government of The United States Of America is issuing checks amounting to some thirty-five million dollars ($35,000,000) to American farmers, rewarding them for growing tobacco, which they, of course, sold to the aforementioned tobacco companies.
And it is hardly a coincidence, that there are also, in Washington, D. C., Lobbyists (and/or "Political Action Committees") who are simultaneously spending some big bucks on lavish entertainment, generous "campaign donations" (of at least nine million dollars per year), and (in all likelihood) even more in bribes to hundreds of bureaucrats, congressmen and senators, to get their support of legislation favorable to the tobacco bloc.
It has been said that the law is an ass. It would appear, in this situation, that this certainly is the case. So I ask, if this law is an ass, what does that make those who write it, defend it, promulgate it, and profit from it?
The most appropriate name I can think of for the rest of us is "cuckold."
How much longer will the taxpayers put up with this patent hypocrisy and blatant insult to their collective intelligence? Are there really so many who are so stupid as to not know what is going on? Has it come to the place where we don’t care where our tax dollars go, or which politicians are willing to sell their souls to the highest bidder? Or have the spin-masters made us too dizzy to see clearly.
The most logical way to bring an end to this vicious cycle is to start at the beginning and stop all subsidies to tobacco growers. (Congress acted to end subsidies on corn, wheat, soybeans, cotton, etc., etc. in 1996, but tobacco and peanuts were exempted. Go figure. Or do you smell something, too?)
My position has nothing to do with a "No Smoking" movement. I’m protesting the irresponsible and irrational actions of the federal government rewarding, with one hand, those who produce that which the same government has, on another hand, found to be harmful to the people whose best interests it is supposed to serve.
And, I guess, it’s also about having my bellyful of politicians who treat me like I don’t matter.
Congress can remedy this inane situation. A congress made up of men and women of integrity would remedy this inane situation.
I’d like to tell each member of congress that he or she must act to stop tobacco subsidies, and they must do it now. I believe others will join to insisting upon this and I’m sure, if our voices are ignored until then, you will hear us roar in November.
William Horden
7 Whitechurch Lane
San Antonio, TX 78257
210/698-2632
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