Retired, two-star general now battles for respiratory health
Retired, two-star general now battles for respiratory health
July 20, 2022
Pollution in hazardous environments present serious health, long-term health risks to servicemembers and first responders. Retired Major General Linda Singh is just one example. We’d like to hear from you, if you have a similar story.
“This is not my normal voice,” rasps Major General Linda Lee Singh, Ret., Maryland’s first African-American and first woman Adjutant General. “People assume my voice has always been like this, but it changed after my deployments abroad.”
Major General Linda Lee Singh, Ret., and Jan De Backer
Singh’s military career includes more than three decades of service in enlisted and officer ranks. She has served in staff and command assignments at every level, including deployed assignments in Kosovo and a combat tour in Afghanistan supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
It was during her deployments in Afghanistan and Bosnia that she began to develop severe allergies that ultimately degenerated into a host of respiratory related maladies that continue to impact her health today.
Singh spoke to Jan De Backer, the founder and CEO of Fluidda, a company leveraging artificial intelligence to interpret CT scans to improve the diagnosis and treatment of lung disease. Singh discusses when her problems began, her ongoing respiratory issues and her frustration with a siloed medical system that seems incapable of diagnosing or treating the root cause of her health issues. (Article continues below video.)
Video: Linda Singh’s conversation with Jan De Backer
Afghanistan deployment
Singh says she was motivated to serve abroad because it was important to understand what she was asking her troops to do.
“I wanted to demonstrate to my troops that if it was OK to send them, it was OK to send me,” she says.
Before deployment, she began receiving briefings about the Kabul area, including the environment. These reports included what Singh and her troops would jokingly refer to as the “Shit in the Air Report,” detailing all the particles they would be exposed to and a breakdown of the air quality by region.
Singh would deploy to Kabul, serving in one of the areas in Afghanistan with the worst air quality.
“I already had seasonal allergies and I began having severe allergies especially in the evenings when they often burn trash and sewage. Kabul sits in a bowl where all the air pollution in the region collects.
“At first it effected my eyes. They were so red, burning, tearing on some days I had to go through meetings with my eyes closed,” she laughs.
Things went downhill from there. She noticed her workouts were being affected.
“I would go in the morning to avoid the bad time of day, but I had to keep running earlier and earlier in the morning to beat the bad air that would blow in.”
Soon she was running at 3:30 a.m. to beat the “cloud of stuff” floating onto the base.
Then there were sandstorms and altitude acclimation. No matter what you do, sand gets everywhere, Singh says. Her tear ducts remain almost completely clogged to this day. This causes migraines and a burdensome regimen of eyedrops and drugs to treat separate symptoms.
“There is greater awareness today that pollution is a major cause of lung disease,” DeBacker says. “Before we assumed smoking in the 60s and 70s caused legacy COPD, but now it is very clear that environmental factors play a much bigger role. There a likely many people out there with similar stories who assume their symptoms are unique. If they could be identified, it is probably a significant amount of people,” De Backer said.
Mounting issues
After Afghanistan, Singh experienced a host of seemingly related maladies, that include, but not limited to: severe allergies; clogged tear ducts; ears and inner ear issues; sinus infections (that lead to surgery); severe asthma and chronic limited lung capacity.
Her sinus infections became so bad that she opted for surgery, which provided some relief, but did not restore her voice.
“The lung has a remarkable ability to compensate, so for a very long time there may be no symptoms,” De Backer said. “That can make it difficult to diagnose the cause.”
The breaking point
The breathing issues started in 2018 as she was flying back and forth to Bosnia where wood is burned as a source of fuel to heat homes and cook food. She would exercise and then cough the rest of the day. She was getting more respiratory infections and taking more antibiotics to fight the infections.
She was prescribed an inhaler, but she didn’t take it with her on a trip to Bosnia. She was walking up a steep incline and had to stop.
“I couldn’t catch my breath. Couldn’t breathe,” she says.
When she reached the top of a historically holy site, Medjugorje, it really hit her that she had developed a respiratory issue.
“I thought it was the end of my career. I knew I had to take it more seriously,” she says.
Singh had her lung capacity tested and it was low. She had never had asthma but was diagnosed with “exercised induced asthma.” However, she notes that it can be triggered by many other factors like temperature and weather.
“Now I have inhalers everywhere,” she jokes.
Frustration
Today, Singh says it is tough to find answers and effective treatments.
“It has been frustrating trying to diagnosis the cause,” she says. “They tell me it is excersize induced, but that doesn’t fully explain it. Something else is causing this breathing restriction.”
She feels that her symptoms in her eyes, sinuses, tear ducts, lungs, ears are connected and that so far the medical system has failed to take a holistic approach.
“Each specialist is treating a symptom and we can’t seem to get to the bottom of the problem,” she says. “Unfortunately I’ve just had to learn to just live with it.”
Singh observes that there seems to be a drive toward integrating medice, but it is mostly talk and not much in practice.
Both of her grandparents died of lung cancer and she watched them declined.
“I’m very concerned that I’m at a higher risk,” she says, expressing doubt that the current healthcare system would detect lung cancer in time. “That is not a place where I want to be. I try to stay very active with my treatment, but I really don’t know. I don’t know when that diagnosis will ever come, and I hope it never does.”
Retired, two-star general now battles for respiratory health
Retired, two-star general now battles for respiratory health
Pollution in hazardous environments present serious health, long-term health risks to servicemembers and first responders. Retired Major General Linda Singh is just one example. We’d like to hear from you, if you have a similar story.
“This is not my normal voice,” rasps Major General Linda Lee Singh, Ret., Maryland’s first African-American and first woman Adjutant General. “People assume my voice has always been like this, but it changed after my deployments abroad.”
Singh’s military career includes more than three decades of service in enlisted and officer ranks. She has served in staff and command assignments at every level, including deployed assignments in Kosovo and a combat tour in Afghanistan supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
It was during her deployments in Afghanistan and Bosnia that she began to develop severe allergies that ultimately degenerated into a host of respiratory related maladies that continue to impact her health today.
Singh spoke to Jan De Backer, the founder and CEO of Fluidda, a company leveraging artificial intelligence to interpret CT scans to improve the diagnosis and treatment of lung disease. Singh discusses when her problems began, her ongoing respiratory issues and her frustration with a siloed medical system that seems incapable of diagnosing or treating the root cause of her health issues. (Article continues below video.)
Video: Linda Singh’s conversation with Jan De Backer
Afghanistan deployment
Singh says she was motivated to serve abroad because it was important to understand what she was asking her troops to do.
“I wanted to demonstrate to my troops that if it was OK to send them, it was OK to send me,” she says.
Before deployment, she began receiving briefings about the Kabul area, including the environment. These reports included what Singh and her troops would jokingly refer to as the “Shit in the Air Report,” detailing all the particles they would be exposed to and a breakdown of the air quality by region.
Singh would deploy to Kabul, serving in one of the areas in Afghanistan with the worst air quality.
“I already had seasonal allergies and I began having severe allergies especially in the evenings when they often burn trash and sewage. Kabul sits in a bowl where all the air pollution in the region collects.
“At first it effected my eyes. They were so red, burning, tearing on some days I had to go through meetings with my eyes closed,” she laughs.
Things went downhill from there. She noticed her workouts were being affected.
“I would go in the morning to avoid the bad time of day, but I had to keep running earlier and earlier in the morning to beat the bad air that would blow in.”
Soon she was running at 3:30 a.m. to beat the “cloud of stuff” floating onto the base.
Then there were sandstorms and altitude acclimation. No matter what you do, sand gets everywhere, Singh says. Her tear ducts remain almost completely clogged to this day. This causes migraines and a burdensome regimen of eyedrops and drugs to treat separate symptoms.
“There is greater awareness today that pollution is a major cause of lung disease,” DeBacker says. “Before we assumed smoking in the 60s and 70s caused legacy COPD, but now it is very clear that environmental factors play a much bigger role. There a likely many people out there with similar stories who assume their symptoms are unique. If they could be identified, it is probably a significant amount of people,” De Backer said.
Mounting issues
After Afghanistan, Singh experienced a host of seemingly related maladies, that include, but not limited to: severe allergies; clogged tear ducts; ears and inner ear issues; sinus infections (that lead to surgery); severe asthma and chronic limited lung capacity.
Her sinus infections became so bad that she opted for surgery, which provided some relief, but did not restore her voice.
“The lung has a remarkable ability to compensate, so for a very long time there may be no symptoms,” De Backer said. “That can make it difficult to diagnose the cause.”
The breaking point
The breathing issues started in 2018 as she was flying back and forth to Bosnia where wood is burned as a source of fuel to heat homes and cook food. She would exercise and then cough the rest of the day. She was getting more respiratory infections and taking more antibiotics to fight the infections.
She was prescribed an inhaler, but she didn’t take it with her on a trip to Bosnia. She was walking up a steep incline and had to stop.
“I couldn’t catch my breath. Couldn’t breathe,” she says.
When she reached the top of a historically holy site, Medjugorje, it really hit her that she had developed a respiratory issue.
“I thought it was the end of my career. I knew I had to take it more seriously,” she says.
Singh had her lung capacity tested and it was low. She had never had asthma but was diagnosed with “exercised induced asthma.” However, she notes that it can be triggered by many other factors like temperature and weather.
“Now I have inhalers everywhere,” she jokes.
Frustration
Today, Singh says it is tough to find answers and effective treatments.
“It has been frustrating trying to diagnosis the cause,” she says. “They tell me it is excersize induced, but that doesn’t fully explain it. Something else is causing this breathing restriction.”
She feels that her symptoms in her eyes, sinuses, tear ducts, lungs, ears are connected and that so far the medical system has failed to take a holistic approach.
“Each specialist is treating a symptom and we can’t seem to get to the bottom of the problem,” she says. “Unfortunately I’ve just had to learn to just live with it.”
Singh observes that there seems to be a drive toward integrating medice, but it is mostly talk and not much in practice.
Both of her grandparents died of lung cancer and she watched them declined.
“I’m very concerned that I’m at a higher risk,” she says, expressing doubt that the current healthcare system would detect lung cancer in time. “That is not a place where I want to be. I try to stay very active with my treatment, but I really don’t know. I don’t know when that diagnosis will ever come, and I hope it never does.”