On Jan. 8, St. Mary’s Hospital celebrated the grand opening of a new pulmonary and cardiac rehabilitation center named after Grace Anne Dorney Koppel, a national patient advocate for the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s COPD Learn More Breathe Better® Campaign. Former ABC News “Nightline” anchor Ted Koppel had the idea for the gift and donated the funds to open the center in honor of his wife, Grace Anne.
“It has long been my dream that everybody would have access to pulmonary rehabilitation,” said Grace Anne. In 2001, she was diagnosed with a very severe case of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and given a few years to live. COPD is a group of lung diseases including emphysema, refractory asthma, chronic bronchitis and bronchiectasis. As opposed to taking the prognosis as a death sentence, Grace Anne decided to learn how to better live with the incurable pulmonary disease.
“It’s important to remember it isn’t curable, but it’s treatable,” said Grace Anne. She began pulmonary rehabilitation and through hard work and dedication increased her lung capacity from 26 percent to almost 70 percent. She went from complete exhaustion simply standing on a moving walkway to now walking two to three miles on a treadmill six to seven days a week. Since 2007, she has shared her experiences on a national platform and is a testament to not letting her health slow her down.