God is great and cares for fools and the wise alike. Return appointment to the doctor today, the first since my diagnosis. Told him about the quit smoking bid, discussed my otherwise good health, the fact I'm rarely sick, and that the x-ray which caught the copd that was taken for another purpose entirely had fortunately caught the disease before I had noticable day to day symptoms and had mostly full lung capacity remaining. He said that one thing I've been desperate to hear. " As long as I remain quit, and take care of my health and barring any unlucky turn of events he doesn't expect my life to be shortened by any great extent." Now, what more could a 48 year old man hope to hear I tell you. On the other hand he said that from where I stand now healthwise, if I continue to smoke he expects I'd be on oxygen in around 5 years. As for my non cardiac chest pain, he doesn't seem too worried about it and thinks it may dissapear as my lungs get more used to fresh healthy air and not having hot poisonous toxins bathing them every 10 minutes or so.
The final thing will be the pulmonologist? (is that what they're called?) He will send me to one after I've been off the smokes for 4-6 months to set me up with testing and get base line figures for future reference.

I was a double danged fool to ever smoke. But by gods grace he loves fools as well as the wise.