A year ago today I lost my father to a smoking-related disease. It was a slow, unpleasant death. Please, if you smoke, spare yourself from this death, give it up now.
When he was young he said “Its my body, I’ll do what I want”
In the early part of his disease he said “I know men who smoked until they were 80, smoking doesn’t cause this.”
As his disease progressed and he was gasping, struggling for breath he said “This isn’t life, its not living. I’m just waiting to die.”
It was horrible to watch.
Someone else close to me died 8 years ago of lung cancer. In the end, he was begging god to take him, it hurt so much.
Thank you for that. I just sent it to my mom, who has been a smoker since she was 18… she is 58 now. I never want to go through what you went through, and I never want my mom to go through what your dad went through. Sorry for your loss…
I too am sorry for your loss, Khadaji, and for anyone else that’s experienced that. I quit after 17 years on the day I got married. Twern’t easy and still had dreams about cigarettes for a couple of years after but am finally past it. I’m so glad all that was over before my child came along.
Ah. I wish seeing someone else suffer had the desired effect on people. Unfortunately, my husband is still smoking after his father’s death 6 years ago. He’s “trying to quit” and has been for 6 years.
Boy, I needed to read this. About a month ago I set my quit date for tomorrow. I’m having quitter’s-eve panic and trying to find a way to rationalize putting it off.
I’m going through this with my dad right now. He started smoking at the age of 12, and since then, he has never looked back. He too had the “it’s my body and my life” excuses. Not to mention what it did to my lungs as a child from all the second hand smoke I inhaled.
Right now, he’s on disability for an unrelated illness, but he’s sitting at home, with 6% capacity in one lung and just over 9% in the other, with an oxygen mask stuck to his face because of the smoking. It’s all he can do to go to the bathroom, and the least little bit of excitement sends him into gasping fits. It’s terrible to watch, more terrible to go through I’m sure, but it’s his body and his life, so what can you do?
I’m sorry about your father Khadaji, no one should have to go through this kind of death when it’s so unnecessary.
I am the worst kind of advocate… the ex smoker. Six years ago I lost my grandfather to a heart attack brought on by 55 years of being a smoker.
Two years ago, I lost a friend, who was 33, to lung cancer. He smoked 3 packs a day and dipped snuff. The day after he died, I quit and haven’t touched tobacco since.
To those that are quitting, I wish you the best of luck. Remember! Just don’t smoke. Make the choice NOT to smoke.
My dad smoked before I was born, mostly because everybody smoked back then. When I was born, he went around offering the traditional cigars to people at the hospital. My mom’s OB looked at the offered cigar, and remarked how smoking around the baby wouldn’t be good for me. This apparently clicked with my dad, because he didn’t smoke from then on. Thanks, dad.
I can’t find the article any longer, but within the last year or two, there was an article in the Chicago Tribune (probably an AP news article or something) about some research that’d been done on the effects of nicotine on the brain. Apparently nicotine sets off all sorts of reward systems in the brain - the same kinds of rewards that you get when you do life-prolonging or reproduction-encouraging things like having sex, eating, and so on. Even worse, it turns on those rewards for a long time (a half hour, IIRC), so that your brain comes to think that smoking is something vitally important to your existence. That’s right - those cigarettes have fooled your brain into believing that you need them to live. That’s why the cravings are so bad - your brain is telling you that you’re dying without them, when the exact opposite is true.
I just wanted to say that this Sunday will be 3 weeks for me. I haven’t touched one, haven’t even wanted one.
I think what did it for me was the way I quit. I wasn’t feeling well. I smoked the first cig in a new pack. It made me feel so bad that I didn’t smoke the rest of the night. The next day, I got up, took the remaining 19 cigs out of the pack, ripped them to shreds and dunked them in water. It was oddly theraputic. I’ve been enjoying having the extra money. I’ve allowed myself to buy $20 in scratch tickets a week and the other $10 goes for lunch one day. I haven’t won anything on the scratch tickets so I’m still losing the money but I can breathe better already.
This Sunday will be 1 week for my fiancee. He has a few breathing problems (oddly enough - none are caused by smoking) and it was getting pretty hard to breathe. He couldn’t smoke anyway so I bought him the patch. He hasn’t touched one since then.
I’ve never had a mental addiction to the nicotine. It was more of a cure for boredom (yes, I know that’s stupid). So, quitting has been easy for me. My fiance has been smoking for at least 16 years (he’s only 31) and he truly is addicted so he’s struggling a bit. I’m so proud of him!!!
Now, I just have to get each of our sisters to stop. And I have to get his mother (or HalfLung as her daughter calls her), to stop sneaking them. She had half a lung removed two years ago, and lost both her parents to lung cancer but she still sneaks them. If I can get those 3 people to stop, there wont be a single smoker in either of our families!
I hear you, darlin’. My dad’s smoked for forty years or so, and on Christmas of 1996 he had a massive heart attack. He was smoking out the window as we were driving him to the hospital. After a lot of testing, they found that he’d been having little mini-heart attacks for a very long time, and had a section of dead tissue in his heart. The night before his quintuple bypass surgery, I stood there and watched my mother’s face when the surgeon said, “When I pick your husband’s heart up to cut it, it may just crumble like cottage cheese in my hand.” I’ll never forget that look as long as I live.
Dad made it through, and he quit smoking for a year or so, but then he started again. He had a stroke last fall…and kept right on smoking. The rate he’s going, he’ll back in that OR by the time my infant niece starts school, and I’ll have to see that look on Mom’s face again. This time his heart almost certainly will crumble like cottage cheese when they go to cut it and he’ll come out of that room with a sheet over his face and a tag on his toe. All over the goddammed cancer sticks.
If you can’t or won’t quit for yourself, for the love of god at least try to quit so the people who love you never have to hear a doctor talking about your heart just…disintegrating when they try to repair it.
congodwarf congratulations! I quit three years ago this New Years. I didn’t think I could. It helped a lot that I quit with my wife. The patch helped a lot for me. If I can quit anyone can. I can not believe how much better I feel everyday. I was motivated to quit because of how I started to feel every morning. It felt like I was sick everyday, coughing and lethargic. I needed a cigarette the second I got up. Thats no way to go through life.
Thanks Loach! You too!
I was pretty much feeling the same way. Add the crappy feelings from smoking to being anemic, overweight and reflux - I was pretty miserable. It was the day I felt so crappy after smoking that made me go to the doctor to find out I’m anemic. So, I started the iron, vitamins and quit smoking all at the same time. I feel so amazing right now - I can’t even describe it. I feel like I’m flying. Of course I still have bad knees and sciatica but I can handle those.
You know, from the way I describe myself, I sound like an old fart. It’s too bad that I’m a only month shy of 25
My mother smoked in her twenties, but quit when she got pregnant with me. Then she started again when I was 3 or so and smoked for a few more years. I managed to get her to quit because I would leave the room whenever she lit up. She stayed a non-smoker for over twenty years. And she was adamant; she really didn’t like the habit at all.
Then for some reason, she started smoking again earlier this year. She’s been smoking now for about 8 months. She has health problems that are beyond her control; I can’t believe she would pay to add one more. I don’t like it to admit it, but her smoking is making me not want to spend time with her. And when she hugs me now, I feel myself pull away quicker because she smells like smoke.
Mom, I know you’ll read this. Please stop smoking. I’ll do whatever I can to help you. This is really important to me. I love you too much to watch you do this to yourself.
A good friend of mine died on Wednesday from smoking-related diseases. She’d been sick for more than a decade but the last year or so was really bad and, in recent months, she began requiring more and more hospital stays. Watching her get more and more sick over the years was just awful, and I find myself relieved (and still so, so sad) that she’s finally gone. I’d give anything to know I’ll be seeing her again this weekend, but I’m glad she’s not suffering anymore.
I’ve been wanting to start a thread about my friend, with a different sort of plea though, and I still might.
04/20/50 - 12/01/04 Patty Walker
My son’s paternal grandfather has been dying for years from the same illnesses that took Patty from me. Every Christmas we wonder if he’ll make it to the next. He’s in okay shape now (and much older than Patty), but he won’t be seeing Alex grow up too much. I think we’ve had too many close calls with him to be spared the next time.
I smoke. I’ve known for a long time that it’s bad for me, but I don’t want to die. Not like that. I won’t even care about cigarettes anymore on Christmas, I think. That’s my goal. Fuck this.
Silvy, I know you’ll reach your goal. You’re a very strong person, and you’ve gotten over bigger humps in your life. Best of luck!
Best of luck, as well, to everyone else quitting.
I’ve been pondering stopping, myself–I’m not a habitual smoker to begin with, which is why I figure now’s the time. I never got that much enjoyment out of cigarettes, anyway, and I’ve found that I only ever really smoke them because whenever I go out with my friends that’s what they’re all doing. I’ll probably enjoy the occasional cigar still, because that’s actually pleasurable, managable and not too incredibly bad for you if you keep it in check, it seems. (No cigar [lack of] safety hijacks, please!) Anyway, I don’t anticipate having any trouble saying no to cigarettes, but I figure it’ll be a positive thing for me anyway.
Silver Fire: good for you! Keep saying “Fuck this.”
This past August, I put my dad in the ground after a lifetime of smoking. The last 10 months of his life were a hellish half-life of hospital visit after hospital visit, a lung removal, non-stop oxygen, and non-stop pain.
Now my 3.5 and 1.5 year old sons will never get to know their grandfather.
My father died two years ago due to a large extent from the effects of smoking. He never suffered any lung problems…his problems were all due to circulation problems aggravated by smoking: a massive stroke that left him unable to speak in complete sentences or use his left hand; three heart attacks; amputations of his leg and the toes of the other foot. He died from complications of a surgery meant to save his remaining leg from also being amputated above the knee.
Sad thing is, he quit smoking a year before he died…it’s just that by that point, too much damage had already been done. If only he had stopped before things reached that point…
Being a witness to his suffering made a deep impact on me. His experiences are a big part of the reason why I decided to apply to medical school, actually…to try to help others avoid his fate. Perhaps if I can help others through his experience that will turn out to be a silver lining in my life, but I will always be scarred by my father’s premature and senseless death.
If he had lived, he would have been turning 60 this month. It hurts sometimes to think about all the things he has missed and will miss because of cigarettes. He didn’t get to see me graduate college (or, for that matter, hear the news when I found out I was accepted to medical school). He won’t get to see any grandchildren. He won’t get to see what my brother and I will make of our lives.
Not to mention all the little things he liked to do that became impossible as his disabilities worsened.
Smoking robbed our family of so much and gave nothing but suffering. I don’t think most smokers can really appreciate how their habit will affect them and their loved ones until it’s too late.
