Our Campaign: Peter Gzowski Fund
A daughter's request
by Alison Gzowski
I'd never heard of COPD - Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease - until my father was diagnosed with it a few years ago. It's a mouthful to say and I could never get those slightly abstract words in the right order. But there was nothing abstract about what that disease did to my dad. It was terrifying to watch the most vital person I've ever known doubled over some days, desperate to do what most of us are lucky enough to take for granted - breathe. And if it scared me, I can't imagine what it was like to be him, a strong, independent man gasping for air.
My father died last January from COPD. It's a disease without a cure. The good news is that it can be treated and he was lucky enough to be treated at West Park Healthcare Centre. He called West Park his "Breathing Academy." It was there he learned how to manage his disease, how to breathe a little easier when it seemed nearly impossible to breathe at all. I know he took breathing lessons and was taught some helpful exercises.
I can't say I know all the details of his medical treatment, but I do know that going to the Breathing Academy made his last years immeasurably better than they would have been without that help.
Because he could manage his disease, he had hope that he could still work and continue as much of his public life as possible. In fact, he wrote for the Globe & Mail right up until his final hospitalization.
I think West Park also gave him some dignity by helping him to be comfortable enough with an oxygen tank so that he wouldn't isolate himself at home.
His last public appearance was for West Park. He appeared in a television ad - wearing the hose up his nose, as he called it - to help the place that helped him so much. He never got to see the finished ad but I know he'd want us to continue what he couldn't.
I only wish he'd found the Breathing Academy a little sooner.
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