RIP, JB

[karentoe]

A colleague died Monday night after a long battle with inoperable cancer. JB smoked 4 packs of cigarettes a day for the 15 years I knew her. She's out of her pain now, but I can't help thinking she didn't have to go through this

Comments

[suricattus]

It's an addiction. You can want to quit and not be able to. As a former smoker, I know how tough it was -- and I don't have what's considered an 'addictive' personality. Someone who does -- well, it's pretty much hell.

[ozlady]

I *love* meerkats- any chance I could use your brilliant icon? I will credit! :-D

BTW, I agree with you re the quitting. I quit in April and although I was a very light smoker, it was quite possibly the hardest thing I have ever done. And I *still* crave a cigarette every time something is stressful or doesn't go right...or when I wake up or when I have a filling meal or when I am driving. LOL! It's basically a lifelong battle I will be fighting every day. Sigh...

[karentoe]

I know it can be heard to quit, but a lot of these people haven't tried - we see them at noon every day taking their cigarette break. And you've got to keep trying.

The whole cigarette industry drives me nuts. It's a addictive drug that leads to a slow death for many, many people, and the government has helped it along through the years. What bothers me even more these days is seeing a lot of young people picking up the habit because they think it's cool. When the company went smoke free they offered help to those who liked to quit. For along time the only people outside smoking were a certain age - folks who didn't or couldn't quit. The past few years they've been joined be a lot of 20 somethings. Perhaps they just didn't have exposure to people suffering from smoking-related illnesses to realize that "cool" thing really is risky. I know seeing Mrs. S die slowly made me hate cigarettes. She left my best friend, at age 8, motherless. Mrs. S was the first person in my life who I knew really well to die.

[havocthecat]

That's a good point, and one I hadn't considered when I mentioned my coworker in my comment.

[havocthecat]

I have a coworker who was diagnosed with lung cancer--and her older sister died of lung cancer. My coworker got lucky, because she went to the doctor when she started coughing blood and they ran test after test until they figured out why she was coughing blood (even though she stopped after a couple of weeks). They removed a lobe of my coworker's lung, and she was out of work for four or five months recovering from it.

She still smokes. And I remain absolutely stunned by the lack of self-preservational instinct that some people have.

[jennetj]

Several years ago the mother of an ex-boyfriend died of emphysema. I attended the wake, and at the funeral home, there was an antiroom next to the chapel where the family and friends could go to relax. And they allowed smoking in there. At one point, all 4 of her children were in there, and all 4 were smoking. With their mother lying in the next room, having died from cigarettes. I know it's an addiction; my mother smoked until the day she died. But one would have thought, seeing their mother die from it....

[karentoe]

Yeah, that's the real kicker. You'd think they'd be scared into quitting.

My dad remembers his first week of not smoking was tough, and that was that. He did it cold turkey. He was only tempted to smoke once - in a social situation someone offered him a cigarette and he almost took it. I think it helped that he never went to places socially where smoking was common.