Glenis Madden

Free to Breath

Glenis Madden knew there was something wrong when old ladies wheeling Zimmer frames started to overtake her on the footpath.The 62 year old had suffered with asthma since the age of 32, but steroids and antibiotics had always controlled her symptoms.  Things were beginning to worsen, but Glenis couldn’t figure out what was wrong.Several tests later, doctors diagnosed lack of oxygen as the problem, with Glenis’ lungs operating at only 30% capacity. They recommended Glenis be put on 24 hour oxygen.The prognosis devastated the extraverted grandmother.

“My first thought was, this is the end of my life,” she says.

“No more work, no more socialising, no more watching my family play rugby. I’ll be stuck to a canister at home all day!”

But Glenis soon learned her fears were unfounded. Using the Internet, she found out about a refillable oxygen system that would allow her to carry on with her life with very little adjustment.

Hospital funding unfortunately didn’t extend to refillable oxygen systems, so Glenis has paid for this one herself.

She says Invacare’s Homefill II Oxygen filling system has given her “a new lease on life, and it’s so much easier being able to refill my tank at home. I live an hour and 20 minutes away from work, and there’s no way I can make that commute without my oxygen.”

Glenis works for the Ministry of Social Development in the National Programme Centre in Lower Hutt. She’s been with them for 24 years, loves her job and couldn’t bear the thought that poor health would force her to give up work.

She has nothing but praise for her employer, who she says has been extremely accommodating with her health issues. Likewise her family, workmates and friends, whose encouragement and support she is eternally grateful for.

Days start early in her Masterton household. The alarm goes off at 4.30am then it’s off to work, a commute by train or car pool into Lower Hutt.

Once she gets to work, Glenis switches over to a big concentrator, using her more portable oxygen for meetings and lunch breaks.

She says she’s used to the stares she sometimes gets, adding that most people who approach her do so because they want to find out more about the system for friends or family who are oxygen dependent.

Not all approaches are quite so academic, though. Glenis recalls sitting at the Waterloo train station and being asked by a man for a “suck on some of what you’re having.”

“I told him I thought he’d be disappointed,” laughs Glenis in her typical cheerful fashion.

Glenis also uses her oxygen to help her indulge in another passion – watching rugby. With two sons who play in the senior Wairarapa competition and a grandson who’s an aspiring All Black, Glenis says she needs all the lung power she can get to yell out encouragement from the sidelines.

“I love being able to go down to their home ground and feel like I can fully support my boys.”

 It’s not just work and rugby spectating that her oxygen helps with. Glenis loves to dance and she recently received a Dancing Queen award for her fancy footwork.

“I celebrated my 40^th Wedding Anniversary recently and Peter (my husband) slung the oxygen tank over his shoulder so we could dance. We had a fabulous time carving up the dance floor – so much so that my workmates who were there presented me with an award at work!”

Glenis says she still has some asthma, but that other problems have abated, such as the ulcers on her legs that appeared two years ago.

“Things got so bad, I ended up in hospital with respiratory failure. Add to that my ulcers and I was in pretty bad shape. But the oxygen has done the trick. My ulcers have gone and I can get on with my life.

People sometimes ask me why I don’t retire, but I love my job. I love being part of everything and I feel really sorry for people who need oxygen but don’t have something like this system. It just gives you back your life.”