On a sunny day in New Ollerton, Nottinghamshire, Margaret Marsh, 53, is in her living room "brewing". "I'm not making a cup of tea," she rasps in between gulps of medication, "it's my way of saying I'm getting an infection."

Margaret knows all about infections, and has a medical arsenal to stave them off. She suffers from severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease - "that's emphysema" - and relies on a combination of inhalers, steroids, antibiotics, nebulisers and liquid oxygen to prevent her lungs clogging up and collapsing.

"In 1986 I was told I had bronchial asthma. I'd get colds and coughs, a bit wheezy, but the infections got worse. Around five years ago I was hospitalised for the first time. I was gasping for breath. I was panicking. I didn't know what was going on. I couldn't eat, drink or talk. I was frightened."

Margaret's condition could deteriorate rapidly. If she was "brewing" she couldn't go to the GP so she contacted a specialist outreach nurse, who would take a sputum sample to see what was causing the infection. But the testing took up to seven days, by which point she would already be in A&E. Paramedics rushed her to hospital once or twice a year for the next three years.

Daughters Paula, 33, and Nicola, 26, have vivid memories of those times. Nicola says: "Nobody likes going to hospital. You don't know what you're going in to. You don't know what the outcome will be. Kings Mill hospital has a respiratory ward. It's the biggest ward but it's the busiest ... Mum wouldn't get on to that ward straight away. First she'd be in A&E, then medical admissions and then the respiratory ward."

Margaret once spent 12 hours on a stretcher waiting to get from A&E to medical admissions, where she waited a further five days to be transferred to the ward. "That's what takes its toll," says Nicola. "Sometimes the waiting would put her back in intensive care."

In 2004 she spent three months at home. In 2005 she went into hospital on New Year's Day and was discharged four months later. "I was surviving in hospital, I wasn't living," she says. "You've got people taking you to the toilet, bathing you. You lose your dignity."

Things improved last summer when she met community matron Cheryl Corringham, who works for Newark and Sherwood primary care trust. Through Cheryl, she has been able to manage her illness and stay out of hospital for nine months. Cheryl says: "I'll assess her condition, make a diagnosis and then treat it with the appropriate medication. I'll visit her daily. Once her condition has stabilised I'll pull back."

Margaret is delighted to have Cheryl around and, despite wearing an oxygen mask, she raves about her improved quality of life. "I know about my condition. I know what medication I'm on and why. It's not just the medical side. It's the reassurance of having someone there for me ... I've got my independence back. I've even been able to go to the seaside, where we've got a caravan. I'm much happier."