Richard Gwin/Journal World-Photo. Joe Nobo, of Lawrence, does some exercise as part of Lawrence Memorial Hospital's pulmonary rehab program.

Unless you’re actually looking for the oxygen tank that Joe Nobo carries around, you could go several minutes without noticing it.

Last week, he strolled into an exercise room at Lawrence Memorial Hospital and immediately turned to the rest of the room, ready to poke fun at any familiar face within 20 feet.

“You,” he said to an elderly gentleman, Nobo’s neighbor, actually, as he rode a bike. “I do not need to see you.”

He turned to everyone else as laughter bubbled.

“I have to deal with him on a regular basis.”

But there it is, in his hand, inside a soft black sleeve, like some kind of large holder for a thermos. He has clear oxygen tubes threaded over his ears and into his nostrils.

Nobo, 69, has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, which makes it difficult for him to breathe. This period of his life, where he is bound to the tank 24 hours a day, began five years ago in a flip-of-the-switch moment. He woke up on Thanksgiving morning feeling normal. Then he was overcome with the sweats and passed out.

Medical professionals at LMH said people in Nobo’s condition are often beaten down with depression. But those who know Nobo, a Cuban immigrant, say he has remained upbeat. The way he sees it, he’s put in too much work as a semi-retired entrepreneur to see life spoiled.

“You work all your life to get to a certain stage in your life to where you can enjoy it,” he said.

It took 18 months for doctors to figure out what happened on that Thanksgiving, some of it spent not knowing if Nobo would survive. COPD had long been stirring inside Nobo after 30 years of smoking. But his collapse came from a pseudomonas pneumonia infection, which, mixed with the COPD, torpedoed his lungs as he knew them.

“I’m thinking that I have five granddaughters, that I want to see them grow up,” he said.

Nobo learned how to live with his condition. In the months after his collapse, medication caused his body to swell by up to 50 pounds. He said when he entered the pulmonary rehab program at LMH, he was capable of walking three-fifths of a mile per hour, for five minutes at a time.

He’s since dropped the extra weight and can amble on at 1.3 miles per hour for 45 minutes at a time.

His joie de vivre has never suffered. His wife, Missy, said he revels in people’s company so much, he needs an “outlet” to talk to people more.

“We’ve kidded about him being a greeter at Wal-Mart,” she said.

Back at LMH, he turned to address everyone after a photographer stopped by.

“I want you to notice I have my photographer with me,” he said. “I am running for the Republican Party.”

Someone asked him if his health is up for such a task.

“The lungs are not good, but the heart is,” he answered.