“The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it.”
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His head, bald from chemotherapy, lolls on a pillow. The bones of his cheeks and shoulders protrude under taut skin.
His eyes are open, but he can no longer respond to his mother or his wife, Bobbie, who married him in a
makeshift ceremony in this room three weeks ago after doctors said there was no hope.
Bryan knew how hard it is to quit. But when he learned he would die because of his habit, he thought maybe he
could persuade at least a few kids not to pick up that first cigarette. Maybe if they could see his sunken cheeks,
how hard it was becoming to breathe, his shriveled body, it might scare them enough.
He knew, only a few days after he went to the hospital on April 2 with severe abdominal pain, how wrong he had been.
He had oat cell lung cancer that had spread to his liver. He probably had not had it long.
Also called small cell lung cancer, it's an aggressive killer that usually claims the lives of its victims within a few months.
Bryan also knew, a few days after the diagnosis, that he wanted somehow to try to save at least one kid from the same fate.
He sat down and talked with Bryan Jr. and his 9-year-old daughter, Amber, who already had been caught once with a cigarette.
But he wanted to do more. Somehow, he had to get his story out.
"I'm too skinny. I can't fight anymore," he whispered to his mother at 9 a.m. June 3. He died that day at 11:56 a.m.,
just nine weeks after the diagnosis.
In high school, Terrie was a pretty cheerleader who competed on the cheer circuit. Her father smoked, and with more and more of her friends
smoking, Terrie soon found herself lighting up in social settings. Eventually she was smoking up to two packs a day.
In 2001, at the age of 40,
Terrie was diagnosed with oral cancer, and later that same year, with throat cancer. Doctors informed her that they would need to remove her larynx.
It was then that she quit smoking for good. Terrie spoke with the aid of an artificial voice box that was inserted in her throat.
She continued to battle cancer with a strong, positive spirit. Terrie died September 16, 2013 from smoking-related cancer. She was 53.
14 year old, Shawn was only trying to make friends and fit in at a new school when he started taking cigarettes from his father. But more than 30 years later he was still smoking, and the damage to his body was taking its toll. Shawn was in his mid-forties when a chronic cough and laryngitis turned out to be throat cancer. He endured 38 radiation treatments and hours at the doctor's office and finally quit smoking—but doctors were unable to save his larynx. He now has a stoma (opening) that allows him to breathe and a laryngeal implant that allows him to speak.
Rose developed lung cancer from smoking cigarettes and showed great strength during nearly 2 years of intense treatments. She had chemotherapy, surgery, radiation, and a painful drainage tube in her chest. Doctors were able to remove the part of Rose's lung where the cancer had grown, but complications kept her in the hospital for a month with a chest tube. "The whole time it was in there, it was painful," she said. "The last 3 or 4 days, I literally cried." Finally, the chest tube came out—with a sharp, jabbing pain. The cause of Rose's cancer—cigarettes—went back to her childhood. Rose started smoking at age 13 and continued for many years, smoking two packs a day. When she was 58 years old, her addiction to cigarettes nearly caused her to lose a foot because of clogged blood vessels. It was during that time she learned that she had lung cancer. "I regret picking up smoking in the first place," said Rose. "It’s just addictive." Rose needed a second surgery after her lung cancer spread to her brain. She hoped that sharing the pain of her treatments would inspire other people to quit smoking as soon as possible. Rose wished that she had more days to spend with her friends and family—especially her three grandchildren, who meant the world to her. She died in January 2015, at age 60 from cancer caused by smoking.
