(BPT) - One woman's journey from an unexpected diagnosis to learning how to manage a chronic, progressive lung disease.

When Lavonda was told she had bronchiectasis, she didn't know what the word meant.

"I had never heard of it before," Lavonda recalls. "At first, I thought it couldn't be that serious."

The diagnosis came in 2008, after an incident in a hot yoga class where she suddenly felt lightheaded, struggled to breathe and thought she might faint. Assuming it was pneumonia, she went to her primary care physician who recommended she see a pulmonologist. But a CT scan revealed something far less familiar — a chronic lung condition that would change how she thought about her day-to-day and lifelong health.

She soon learned about the disease from her physician who explained that with

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