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Vern Klein became
a firefighter at 18. He loved the
adventure, but more than that he
loved the idea of helping people. So
he became an EMT at Mercy Medi-
cal Center Redding, transporting
emergency patients to the hospital.
Klein also had asthma,
not a good combination
when fighting fires, and
by 2012, he was sick and
had difficulty breathing.
Like so many of the
patients he had trans-
ported over his 30-year career, he
soon found himself at Mercy, where
doctors discovered a tumor on his
right lung and he was diagnosed
with cancer. When he underwent
surgery to remove a lower portion
of the right lung, his doctors also
discovered severe damage to his left
lung. In fact, his breathing capacity
was at only 33 percent.
A grim diagnosis
Klein had lung cancer and
chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease (COPD).
For the next three years, he was in
and out of the hospital every three
or four months, each time requiring
a four- to five-day stay. He could
no longer work, and even ordinary
house chores took forever. Chang-
ing the sheets on his bed could take
over an hour. He was
getting discouraged.
But in March 2015,
his outlook became
brighter. That’s when
Mercy Medical Center
Redding opened its
pulmonary rehabilitation program,
and Klein became the first patient.
Many little steps
In his rehabilitation program, Klein
learned how to take a shower. “The
heat and steam from a shower
constricts breathing,” he explains.
“When you get short of breath,
you panic. Now I know to take a
shower when the room is com-
pletely vented.”
He learned how to eat small meals
instead of the big three. “It just
What we do
The pulmonary rehabilitation program helps improve
the quality of life for people with chronic pulmonary
conditions like Vern Klein’s. The six-week program
teaches people how to conserve energy—and thus
breathe—how to deal with indoor and outdoor pollu-
tion, how to travel, how to know if you can exercise,
and how to use controlled breathing techniques.
Pulmonary rehabilitation program
Learning to
breathe again
takes up too much space to eat a
big meal, and I can’t breathe.”
He also learned how to stop himself
from going into a COPD episode.
When he feels his breath start to
constrict, he instantly recognizes
it and can now put his mind some-
where else instead of focusing on
the fact that he’s starving for air.
He has even learned how to go for a
walk. When he started the program,
he couldn’t walk down the side-
walk. After the program, he could
walk the length of Shasta Dam
without any issues.
100 percent improvement
The prognosis for someone with
COPD is never good, because it
never gets better. But life with
COPD can change for the better.
Previously, Klein was constantly
hooked to an oxygen tank. Now he
uses oxygen only at night. His life
has improved 100 percent, accord-
ing to him, all because he learned
to breathe again in the pulmonary
rehabilitation program at Mercy
Medical Center Redding.
He learned to
breathe again in
the pulmonary
rehabilitation
program.
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