I had a normal, happy childhood growing up with my parents and sister and two brothers. At the age of 15 I left school to work in a pharmacy. Jobs were plentiful back then in 1972, as was cigarette advertising. There were cigarette machines in almost every street and outside nearly every newsagents. Anyone could put in the required amount of coins, pull open the chosen drawer and retrieve a pack of ten or twenty ciggies. It was so simple that us kids used to go buy them for our parents and grandparents if ever they asked us. The machines were there to use 24 hours a day, the smoker never had to do without cigarettes so long as they had the money to put in the slot machine! Nobody quite realised back then what a gamble smoking cigarettes really was! The television, newspapers, magazines, supermarkets and billboards made millions of pounds advertising many brands of cigaretttes. There were no health warnings given, no fears were ever mentioned about ciggies causing cancer, heart disease, premature babies etc.
I started smoking at the age of 15, it was considered the 'norm' back then to be a smoker. At first I hated the taste, but I forced myself to like cigarettes, after all, I wanted to be just like everybody else.....
For the first ten years or so I smoked an average of 10 cigarettes a day. I worked long hours, I married at the age of 20 and had housework to fit into my spare time too. Any spare hours in front of the TV or out in the local pub were spent enjoying a cigarette.
By the time I was 30 I was smoking an average of 30 to 40 a day, despite the government starting to warn us that cigarettes could seriously damage our health. We were totally addicted by the time we realised cigarettes were linked to cancer and heart disease etc. I watched my grandmother die of a smoking related illness when I was 31 years old. Just 4 years later I watched my grandad battle to survive lung cancer. He lost! He had triumphed over beating throat cancer just 4 years before, he even had his voice box removed! Still I carried on smoking, still I thought it only happened to other people...
Lots of aquaintances died of cancer through smoking over the years, many living only to their 40s, unaware of the dangers each time they lit a ciggie.
By the time I was 40 I was smoking up to 60 a day. My health was deteriorating quickly, I was breathless, I had a persistent cough that no antibiotics could cure. I felt old, worn out and useless, yet I didn't LOOK old! I suffered chest pains and palpitations. My doctor would tell me it was due to smoking.
I accepted that, never once did I think to stop, I simply walked out the surgery and lit up the much-wanted cigarette!
By the time I was 42 I discovered how to build websites on our PC. I would stay up all night, e-mailing friends around the world, building websites for myself and others, chain-smoking all the time.... I was soon up to 80 ciggies a day! By the age of 45, in May 2002 I realised just how badly I was deteriorating.
I could walk from the car to the supermarket, but not any further without coughing and wheezing. I could get upstairs but only if I took it very slowly, then got my breath back at the top before doing what I'd gone up for. I could mow the lawn if I stopped the electric mower every few minutes while I rested and had a cigarette! I could smoke when I got up so long as I used my Inhalator first to clear my airways... but still I coughed, still I couldn't breathe, yet still I smoked up to 80 ciggies a day!
For 10 long weeks I visited my doctor constantly with chest pain, coughing, breathlessness, I just felt so ill and weak.
No medications worked anymore, even my inhalor (Ventolin) didn't help me to breathe. I consoled myself with cups of tea and plenty of cigarettes.
I was referred to hospital for a chest x-ray, my doctor told me straight out that I could be suffering from lung cancer, due to smoking so many cigarettes. I left the surgery smoking a ciggie, and had smoked two more by the time I reached hospital.
I was told in x-ray that my results could take a few days to a week. I wasn't worried, I knew it was just smoking.
But Smoking Kills!!! My family were hysterical! My mother, father, hubby, sister, brother and friends were all worried that I could have cancer or emphysemia (lung disease from smoking).
I hadn't realised how much I was hurting others, how much they loved me and needed me! They begged me to stop smoking the day I left the x-ray department. I realised that if I couldn't be bothered to do it for myself, I'd try to quit for them. If my x-ray came back positive for lung cancer I secretly told myself it wasn't worth quitting, I'd live out my remaining months/weeks doing what I loved best, smoking!
The next day I got up determined to quit my 30 year old habit.
You can read how I did it and if I succeeded on the next page.
My x-ray came back negative for cancer, I was suffering from B.O.P.D. (bronchial obstructive pulmonary disease)... caused by my smoking. My doctor was delighted when I told him just a week later that I'd quit, in fact, he told me I was literally saving my life, that I HAD to quit while I still had a choice.
Up to this point in my story I'm on day 17 without ciggies.
I feel much, much healthier, my lungs are now acting as though they were never diseased at all. I can breathe, walk, exercise, run!! All this, just because I haven't lit my ciggies every day!
If you are a smoker, please try to quit. Never give up giving up, no matter how often you might have tried in the past. I hope by reading my diary of quitting on the next page it will help you to realise that it's not as hard as you might think. I can't say it's easy either, but I can honestly say it CAN be done, and the benefits every day after the 3rd day make you want to continue being a quitter!
I'm sure if I'd continued to smoke I would be dead soon.
What do you choose, Life or Cigarettes? The choice is yours....
literally! God bless & good luck if you want to quit!
Love Dawn
