Mum with COPD gets called ‘drunk’ and ‘rude’ by strangers for her condition – she leaves the house ‘ready for battle’

A mum-of-five who has lived with asthma since she was four months old and now battles COPD faces insults from strangers in public who think she’s drunk and rude when she struggles to breathe, talk and walk.

Sara Baker, 63, grew up in London but now lives in Newton Abbott, Devon, with her dog Buddy and two cats, and she has five grown-up children that live across the country. She has struggled with breathing her whole life, having been diagnosed with asthma at four months old which later became chronic.

In 2020 she was diagnosed with COPD – chronic obstructive pulmonary disease – which causes shortness of breath, wheezing, persistent coughs and chest infections, and is caused by damage, inflammation and narrowing of the lungs.

“I struggle day in, day out,” Sara told PA Real Life.

“I could literally get up from the settee now, and by the time I get to the door, I can’t breathe.”

At her last review, Sara was told her lung capacity is just 25%, and she struggles to get enough oxygen to do daily activities like walking, cleaning and gardening – but she’s determined not to let the condition stop her from living her life.

“My goal is to not let it stop me doing anything I want to do, and I’ll just adapt how I can to do it,” she said.

However, what hurts Sara the most is how other people perceive her illness, and she’s been called drunk and rude in public because of how her symptoms are viewed.

“It makes me angry,” she said, “because everything that should be simple is a struggle.”

Sara lives with her dog, Buddy, a Sheepadoodle, a large dog that requires daily walks. She enjoys the opportunity the dog gives her to get out of the house and do some light exercise, but she finds even walking the dog to be a physical challenge.

“That is a struggle,” she said.

“What I tend to do is I’ll turn away from traffic or crowds of people and fiddle with the lead as if I’m doing something, but what I’m actually doing is trying to get my breath without people noticing.

“But he actually knows me, and he knows when to slow down, when to stop and just sort of stand there and wait while I get my breath back.”

Sara can’t walk and talk at the same time, and often needs to take breaks to catch her breath. She particularly struggles with inclines, like steps, ramps and hills, and it can take her a lot longer to walk a distance than a healthy person would.

Still, she likes to garden, and keeps on top of her housework. It just takes her longer to achieve these simple tasks as she has to take breaks to get her breath back.

Sara describes her COPD as feeling like she has “no breath”.

“You don’t think about breathing, you just breathe. To me, breathing is my every day. I’m always concentrating on breathing,” she said.

“It’s the most natural thing in the world but it’s not natural for me any more. I have to work at doing it.”

Sara also gets the shakes, gets clammy because her heart is working harder to pump the limited oxygen around the body, and when her breathing is most difficult it can become truly scary.

“It’s quite panicky, really,” she said.

“But you’ve just got to try and get to the point where you can get that one breath. If you can get that one breath, you can start to get back on top.”

There is no cure for COPD, as the damage to the lungs caused by the condition is permanent, but Sara manages her condition using steroid inhalers which work to reduce inflammation in the airways and make breathing easier.

The next step is supplemental oxygen, which will help her body get the oxygen it needs to survive.

Because of the way her symptoms manifest, Sara said she often battles stigma and misunderstandings from members of the public – people who think she’s drunk because of her slurred speech, slower movements and shakiness, or people who think she’s rude and abrupt as she tries to talk in one breath to say what she needs to.

“Every time you go out in public, you go out ready for battle,” she said.

“Because you’re just waiting for that one person to say something, or have that comment. You are always ready for it.

“And the thing is, you can’t really stand up for yourself, because when you are breathless like that, you don’t have the breath to stand up for yourself.”

Sara recalled one time she took her dog to the park and he approached another dog to play. The other owner wanted to remove their dog from the situation, but in doing so accused Sara of being drunk – her breathlessness from chasing after her dog made her slur her words, and she was unsteady on her feet – an exchange she described as very upsetting.

Because of this, and countless other experiences of misunderstanding from people in public, Sara wants to raise awareness of COPD and encourage people not to “judge” others who may be battling invisible illnesses.

“I should be able to go out of my front door and not be attacked or insulted, but that is my every day,” she said.

“I know when I go out that door to just be prepared for what somebody might say or do.”

According to research conducted by Chiesi Medical, an international, family-owned pharmaceutical company, Sara is far from alone in her experience.

In a Chiesi UK and Ireland survey of 1,148 people living with chronic or rare conditions including asthma, COPD, rare diseases, those who have undergone organ transplants and parents of children born prematurely, 70% of respondents reported feeling judged or stigmatised based on their health condition.

However, Sara – who has recently been part of Chiesi UK Look Beyond the Bias, a national campaign and UK-wide research initiative revealing how stigma and bias can shape patient care, access and outcomes – maintains that she “won’t give in” to judgment and stigma.

“Because why should they stop me living my life?” she said.

“It would be a lot easier to just stay in. But why should I? Why should I do that?

“I have to go out, because if I don’t, then they’ve won.”