What is "emphysema"?

What is "emphysema"?

Emphysema is a disorder where the lung loses its elasticity. We have muscles that will allow us to inhale, but we have no muscles that will allow us to exhale. When you develop emphysema you can pull the air in OK but you can't get rid of it. So you lungs get bigger and bigger and bigger and then they lose their elasticity and then along with that the airways collapse much sooner through expiration, trapping old dirty air in your lungs, and then the alveolar sacks begin to collapse together. So where you used to have a thousand little tiny ones with lots of surface area you now have one big one that has a mere fraction of the surface area available to it in order to exchange oxygen with carbon dioxide. And one might happily, if i can be so forward to say that, be willing to die of lung cancer if they could avoid year after year after year of slowly getting more and more short of breath. It is a terrible disease and its terribly debilitating and its very, very difficult to keep the patient comfortable and productive as year after year they get more and more short of breath.