“I was petrified of climbing stairs,” she says. “Now, I’m more confident."
Seventy-year-old Anita Swallick, a part-time school bus driver from Perth Amboy, has lived with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease for two decades. Last year, she entered the Pulmonary Rehabilitation Program at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Rahway on the advice of pulmonologist Vijaya Tirunahari, MD.
“Ms. Swallick’s exercise tolerance has improved, thanks to Pulmonary Rehab,” Dr. Tirunahari says. “It’s given her the independence she needed to walk further without getting short of breath. I’ll be referring other patients to the program.”
For Ms. Swallick, climbing the stairs from her basement laundry room is no longer a terrifying proposition.
“I was petrified of climbing stairs,” she says. “Now, I’m more confident. I don’t know where I’d be if it weren’t for Pulmonary Rehab. I might have needed supplemental oxygen by now.”