Who Else has Been Effected By The Smoke This Year? (problems, area)

[tijlover]

There's 2 Dr.'s who have a health article in the paper, every other day, and I was surprised to learn that the smoke from the forest fires in the West even permeated areas of the Midwest. That far away!

I have COPD, and, for some time, this summer I wasn't sure what was going on, if my COPD was getting worse and worse, heading for even more major lung problems, or what!

I took a car trip to Gold Beach, OR a month ago, and I drove through any number of white-out areas, along the way, and on my return, and by the time I got to Gold Beach, I had my ventilator with me every single minute, and upon my return to Las Vegas. It really scared the hell out of me, as it was a struggle to even walk a half-block!

Now, I see what was happening, and it didn't come up on my radar screen: the smoke!

Now that the air has become cleaner, I don't even need my ventilator with me, and I only use it a few times a day, as opposed to using it constantly during the smokey times this summer.

Anyone else that was impacted by the smoke this summer? I can't imagine what it was like, for those, with respiratory problems to begin with, to suffer through even closer proximity to those forest fires.
If it were only forests on fire, spewing smoke into the air, a greater worry is the smoke arising from burnt cars and homes. I was once close to a car on fire, and with all that plastic, I never smelled anything so putrid!