Smoking is a sensative subject and since someone was asking I felt obligated to answer.   This was a post on a LC posting board, she is not refering to this Web Site.

I found your website while searching the internet this morning.  I've read your stories and I am so sorry for what you are going through. 

The reason I am writing is my boyfriend.   Mark is 35 and has smoked for about 20 years (off and on) but in the last 5 years very regularly.  We are talking very seriously about getting engaged in the next few months.  I love him very, very much but, after watching my grandfather die from smoking, I am afraid.  I couldn't bear losing him or watching him suffer.  I feel that if he could just talk to one of you - or see how much you have gone through - that he would stop.  I know I can't say anything to him that will get him to stop - in fact, when I do talk about it he becomes even more resolute "I am a smoker, it is who I am".  He says he will quit when we have children.   I want to believe him.

I would be so appreciative if you might write a plea for him and others like him to stop.  I think it might help more than anything I could say or do.

Thanks in advance and good luck to all of you.

Laurie

Laurie/Mark

You raise a very serious issue, an issue that makes many smokers angry. I feel very strongly about smoking/cancer and health and since you asked I am going to take my shot. For the smokers who get upset by my opinion, get over it.

My mother died of LC at the same age I have been diagnosed, 53. She had a lung removed and continued to smoke up until she was at the five year remission mark. She then quit, she had a miserable death and remarked, “you have no idea what it is like to take a breath and not get the air you need“. At that time I had smoked for at least 15 years and had no intention of quitting. My justifications were I enjoyed it and all my smoking friends and relatives justified smoking, addiction, habit, bla bla bla because they, as I, didn’t want to try hard, (discipline). We would rather chance LC and certainly while still smoking enjoyed a very unhealthy existence.

A week before my diagnosis my wife and I held vigil at her fathers deathbed, emphysema. Unbelievable, he was like a fish out of water, huge gasps for air that just wasn’t there. He knew he had emphysema at least 10 years prior to his death but continued to smoke.

I have a neighbor who has emphysema, is on O2 and still smokes. He went to the hospital a few days ago because he couldn’t breath and lit up on the ride home.

Another neighbor who has health problems related to smoking has been in bed and on O2for a few years fell asleep while smoking and burnt his house down a few weeks ago. He was lucky, him and his smoking wife made it out alive. They still smoke.

Five years ago another neighbor had esophagus cancer and the town rallied a spaghetti dinner to help him financially. He was given a carton of cigarettes as a donation instead of money.

While I was having symptoms from bone mets a friend was going through chemo for LC. He was a tough as nails underground minor. He was so inventive that he mounted an ash tray on his wheel chair, ( his hip broke from a bone met) he had a horrible death but enjoyed his cigarettes to the end. He had a horrible death.

All that and all I have as proof that smoking causes LC is that 85% of those with LC, smoked.

It may look like I don’t think people should smoke. Actually I have no problem with what others do, I just don’t like the hand holding that goes on saying its OK. Also, very little money is donated to LC and I believe that is flatly due to smokers saying their disease was not caused by their habit. I won’t donate a nickel to someone who won’t help themselves.

Thanks for the opportunity to say my piece.