Chapter 07: Puff the Magic Page ...

Puff the Magic Page

 on 

Why People Shouldn't Smoke

Oh, how I loved the 70's and 80's...

There's been a lot of speculation on what caused my lung cancer (which caused my brain tumor, which caused my spinal cancer) or some other order.  Most are in agreement that the lungs are the origination point for all of the many varieties of cancer in my body, but what caused it?

The logical answer to that is in the answer to the question "do you or have you ever smoked?"  To which I had to answer "Yes." I started right after high school (class of 77) and smoked for somewhere around 10 years.  It wasn't a continual time line of smoking, because I quit a couple of times,  I tried the patch, the gum, and whatever else was available at the time.  It was hard, and I told myself that I needed these things for help in quitting.  I really just needed an eye opener.  I got that on April 18, 1985,

My parents moved to Florida (Bonita Springs) in the fall of 1984.  My dad had retired from ODOT earlier that year.  I took my first vacation to Florida the following April, and dad had lots of plans.  He had chartered a deep sea fishing trip for three, to include my sister who lived on Sanibel Island at the time.  We spent the first couple of nights just sitting around the house.  We went out to dinner the night before the fishing excursion.  For that morning, dad had set his alarm for 5 AM.  I went to bed, and the next thing I remember is my mom running in and saying "I can't wake him up!"  I jumped up out of bed and went into their room to see my dad lying there, eyes open but seeing nothing.  Just a blank, lifeless stare.  It was the worst day of my life.  My mom was crying hysterically, so I called 911, told them about dad.  I told them they could come in silent because I could see that he was not revive- able.  This is dredging up some strong negative memories, so I'm going to cut out a lot of the details and cut this short.  I then hung up and called my sisters.  Nan came over right away since she was in Sanibel.  Vicki was waiting to see what was necessary; we thought she could do more in Ohio to make arrangements for his services.  After he was cremated in Bonita, Mom, Nan, Tye (dalmation) and I started north.  My recollection is that we drove straight through, dad riding in the console of his favorite, brand new Chevy Suburban.  (side note - we had to put oil in it twice on that trip).

This isn't a blog dedicated to my family history by any stretch, but I felt that it was an important enough event in my life that I needed to mention it.  Dad smoked in his youth as well, quitting somewhere around the age of 30.  I was 26 when he passed (he was 56), and although the official cause of death was heart related, he had respiratory problems most of his adult life.  When I got back to work at ODOT I was sitting at my desk and had a bad chest pain.  I called my doctor and he said "get in here"; so he did and EKG and decided it was only a panic attack (that's like a huge understatement).  When I left the doctor's office I had a partial pack of cigarettes in my purse, and I tossed them into the dumpster.  I'll admit to a backslide when I was around 30, but again when I set my mind to it, I didn't need any assistance; just good old will power.

So the $64,000 question is did the decade or so that I smoked contribute to or cause my cancer?  I got a "probably" from one doctor, a "maybe" from another.  I also had a melanoma removed from my shin that required 26 stitches - that was somewhere around 2012.  Melanoma has been known to resurface after years of absence, but in my case they got clean margins on the first try and everyone seems pretty confident that the melanoma was not the cause of my lung cancer.  Several have told me that it could be  something environmental, could be the smoking and some say we may never know.  So I'm going to interpret that as:

IT WAS THE SMOKING

in the hopes of getting others to quit.  I have a couple of people I could call out specifically but I'm pretty sure they will know who I mean when they read this post.  So while I can't say for certain that the smoking caused my cancer, I choose to blame that nasty habit for my current state.

I will step down off of my soap box now and continue on with more important topics, like steak and wine, in my next posting.