The number on the bedside clock read 3:48 a.m. and I had spent an exhausting day driving from North Carolina to central Pennsylvania, but I just couldn't sleep. My mother's words kept running through my mind.
First, on the phone: "They're taking her off the respirator today. It won't be long after that."
Dressing. Packing.
"It's horrible. They're watching the monitors, waiting to see if she's letting go."
Driving.
"She's gone."
My nieces' mother died of lung cancer last weekend. She was 43. Her girls stayed with her as life drained away. Whispered in her ear. Stroked her hair. Polished her nails. The images in my mind are excruciating but I can't banish them. Just two years ago she'd gone to Colorado to visit her sister and felt a tugging in her chest. "Just the high altitude," everyone said. But the shortness of breath persisted after she returned home. A few weeks later the diagnosis was in: cancer. Stage IV.
Chemotherapy weakened her and she and the girls moved in with her mother. Her hair fell out. She couldn't eat. And yet she didn't stop smoking. And neither did her mother.
My thoughts turn to my father. I remember him blowing foul-smelling smoke rings when I was a girl. Waving my hand in front of my face in displeasure was replaced by disgust when I was a teenager ("I hate it when my hair smells like smoke!") and then, as I entered college, concern. "Dad, those things'll kill you."
"I love smoking. I'm not going to quit."
And he didn't. Until he couldn't breathe anymore. He's on oxygen 24 hours a day now. He can't walk a city block without stopping to rest. A cold knocks him out for two weeks. If he catches pneumonia he'll probably never recover. My mother looks over worriedly as he tries to catch his breath.
Even though he hasn't had a cigarette in years, those things are going to kill him.
We've had to explain to each of his nine grandchildren why he has a tube in his nose all the time. Why he sleeps so much. Why he often doesn't come out with us. Grandpa wants to play. But he can't.
As I sat watching my nieces' tears fall into their mother's casket I thought again of those smoke rings floating by and dissolving into the air around me. What had I pulled into my young lungs? The image before me transformed into my own children standing over me. Could those things steal another life, years later?
Author's note:
I've never smoked so I don't understand how hard it is to quit. But it can't be any harder than saying "no" to your granddaughter's invitation to take a walk around the block. Being bested by one flight of stairs. Wasting away as your children look on. You can't take care of anyone else if you don't take care of yourself. I am angry that smoking has stolen so much from my life and the lives of those I care about.
Lisa Hoffmann is a copywriter by trade and mom and foodie by heart. She blogs about marketing, PR and social media at http://newmedialisa.com. She occasionally goes off topic.
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Add a Comment3 Comments
Lisa, I wish every smoker could read your story and at least think again about quitting. I'm sure it will have touch those who read it.
I lost my father to emphysema and cancer. But at least he started smoking back before we all knew how dangerous it was. I find myself continually surprised at how many twentysomething and thirtysomething smokers there are, smokers who would have known at their first puff that it was something that could hurt or kill them, smokers who have seen the Surgeon General's increasingly direct warnings on every pack they've ever purchased.
I'm so sorry for your nieces. Age 43 is so young. They were robbed.
January 13, 2009 - 10:36amThis Comment
I wish my DH would take such stories to heart. He's a smoker of more than the 30 years we've been married (I've never been a smoker). He sat with his mother through her final hours when she succumbed to lung cancer. His best friend, also a smoker, died of lung cancer.
You'd think my DH would be shaken into reality. Apparently not. Smoking is a very difficult habit to break, apparently.
Thank you all for sharing your stories.
January 12, 2009 - 5:28pmThis Comment
Lisa, this is heartbreaking. And I also know first-hand what it's like to lose a relative this way. My father smoked for decades and about three years ago, he caught a cold around the holidays. He wasn't up for eating or taking medication. A visit to the doctor would only confirm something we suspect he had known for some time -- that he had some problems with his heart.
In the February following the holidays, his body had weakened and he suffered a massive heart attack, which he survived but with complications. In addition to his heart attack, he had lost oxygen to his brain and couldn't communicate in his 'normal' way. We did understand enough to bring him his favorite music -- Oldies -- during his hospital stay. In addition to his heart and brain problems, his arteries showed extreme (90 percent) blockage and he had terrible emphysema. But like many, he gambled with the risks, tried to stop smoking and couldn't quite do it. It would only be five weeks before another heart attack (despite a pacemaker) would take his life. And like you, I'm angry. On the other side, Lisa, my husband smoked for 12 years and quit when he turned 30. He used a prescription medication that he says he would do testimonials for (and he's quite the cynic). If you're interested, PM me and I'll share the details.
Thank you for sharing your story.
Tina T
January 12, 2009 - 4:31pmThis Comment