[Harp-L] harmonica for the lung-challenged?

[JON KIP <jon@xxxxxxxxxx>]

I have a friend with one lung gone and the other partially gone. Cancer. I wonder if anyone here has heard of ill-effects of a little harmonica playing in that condition as a potential method of increasing lung strength and having some fun.

She's going to ask her doctors, but it's hard to tell what the Medical Mainstream would say, one way or another.

In her 80's, she deals with the condition in an extraordinary manner, to say the least, and is open to playing a bit of harmonica, she says. She's into music enough to know that Bob Dillon is not the very best harmonica player in the world, and appreciates Toots' playing.

I can't imagine anything untoward happening, but I'm not a doctor. I'll let them chime in, of course, but any thoughts on the subject would be appreciated... answer off list, no sense cluttering up the place.

People who deal with this kind of physical situation with grace, not letting it get them down, are an inspiration to those of us to whom a hangnail is The End Of The World,  and I'd like to help out.

thanks
jk