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BossyShoeBitch -> RE: Toss the butts or Pass on the Dom (5/23/2007 7:54:54 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: ennaozzie
I am a smoker but because of personal choice i dont smoke in my own house and i dont like people smoking in my house, if someone i like does not like it, i think its for that person to either deal with it or not, i gave up for two and a half years and put on a ton of weight getting to the point i figgered i would end up dieing of a heart attack, a lot sooner than i would if i smoked.
I figger i will live longer being a smoker than i would without it by eating, no i dont have will power i can not stop smoking and not increase the eating.
Ennaozzie,
You are just pretending to think that, right? You seem like a reasonably intelligent person, so I am going to assume you are joking with us..
When I graduated college in 1990. I came home to help my siblings take care of my mother who had been diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer several years earlier. It was deemed inoperable because her lungs were not strong enough to withstand anaesthesia after about 40 years of smoking. She was now in the advanced stages of the disease.
She spent her last 6 months at home. We had a hospital bed and whatever other medical equipment she needed at home. I won't bother going into the horrible details of the chemo and radiation. Nor will I go into detail about taking care of her hygiene and changing her diapers (she was only 58 by the way).
What I will tell you is that she never, ever stopped smoking.
I have to tell you, it's not fun being awakened at 2am because yor mother needs you to light her cigarette and is incapable of working the lighter. I yelled at her for it and never got to tell her I was sorry.
My mother smoked until 2 days before she died, the only reason she stopped then was because she had slipped into a semi comatose state. It became a death watch.
I watched her take her last breath. She inhaled and simply never exhaled. I can remember it as clearly as if it happened an hour ago, the tumors visible and bumpy under the skin on her neck.
It was so surreal.
I had to get over alot of guilt and anger towards my mother for dying. Guilt for yelling at her for waking me at 2am and anger for leaving us. I felt like she chose cigarettes over her family. I am the youngest of 5 children. Because she chose to smoke, she never saw me get married, couldn't be with me during mine (or my sister's) pregnancies or the birth of her 5th, 6th and 7th grandkids (the 5th being my niece).
Before I get alot of posts about how this is such a tough addiction, she didn't choose cigarettes over us, I don't understand, yada yada yada. Let me explain that on May 3, 1993, the day I stopped smoking after 12 years, I was up to two packs a day. (Note that this was 2 years after my mom died).
My mom was one tough broad. At 16 she survived an attack in the NY subway where her assailant cracked a hole in the top of her skull with a hammer.
As an adult, her first husband died in an Eastern Airlines plane crash and left her widowed with 3 boys under the age of 6.
15 years later, she overcame a decade of heavy alcoholism and prescription drug addiction through AA and really, really worked the program. This is why I feel had she really ever decided to quit, she would have done so with the same tenacity she had in overcoming all the other negative things in her life.
Hmm.. Maybe I am still a bit angry? (Sorry Mom. I'm trying).
So here I am. 40 years old, some say devoid of emotion, (those who know me know I almost never cry) and as I sit here in tears all I really, truly long for is to have my Mom stroke my head and softly sing "Unforgettable" to me, the way she used to.
I apologize to everyone for the exceedingly long post, but please Ennaozzie, remember my story next time you light a cigarette and rationalize that it's a better alternative than having to diet and exercise. I can vouch that it isn't.
Be well,
BSB
*edited because I realized the font was huge..
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