As I'm riding in the ambulance on the way to the hospital on Monday because of an bronchial-asthma attack at my doctor's office, I was puffing away at the breathing treatment that the paramedic was administering and thinking back to when I was 16 and if we could just turn back the clock, how we would change things. Then again, maybe not.....I mean at 16, you think that your young and healthy and nothing can touch you. You know EVERYTHING!!! That was when I took my first puff of a cigarette. That many years ago, it was THE thing to do. It made you look cool, sophisticated and was something to do when you got together with your friends AND something you could hide from your parents! Back then there were no big heavy duty health warnings out there about the hazards of smoking. And, if there were, I wasn't listening because I was being cool.
I smoked for 24 years. I burned a hole in my wedding veil on the day I got married! Oh yeah, that was really cool, wasn't it? I smoked through two pregnancies; in fact when my kids were born we had ash trays in our hospital rooms! Now when I see a pregnant woman smoking, I want to walk up and smack the cigarette out of her hand. I don't need to hear the proof of it causing smaller babies....I had proof; one at 6lb 8oz. and the other at 5lbs 13 oz. And after Shelly was born, did it make me think that perhaps I should quit when I got pregnant with Becky....no! And, Becky came along even smaller (I even drank while pregnant, but back then, along with cigarettes, you and your baby were still safe). Oh, and that looked really cool, walking around carrying a newborn with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth.
Years passed and I kept smoking until I walked into my job one day to find out that our boss (who hated smoking) had banned smoking in the building. Up until then, we even smoked at our desks. I was livid!! Us smokers were the minority and our rights were getting trampled on! Well, all the complaining in the world didn't change his way of thinking and our new smoking area was the alley outside in back of the building. Oh, you can imagine how cool we looked shivering out there in the dead of winter puffing away.
FINALLY, after more years went by, I realized that it was just becoming too inconvenient to smoke; less and less places allowed it. The health warnings, for some reason, did not scare me. However, I realized that cigarettes had a 'hold' on me and I didn't like it. I was dependent.....I was addicted!! So, I decided to quit. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life but the COOLEST! Note: My father, a heavy smoker for many years, died 3 years ago from lung cancer; years after he quit smoking.
Well, being cool years ago has come back to haunt me.....even 20 years after I have quit. I am now under doctor's care, on many medications, inhalers, and nebulizer (breathing machine) three times a day. Right now my ashthma has advanced to a more serious level and hopefully the other tests that they plan to do on me to see if I have emphasema or COPD will come out negative because.........
That certainly would not be COOL! P.S. Shelly, please quit smoking because I love you too much for you to feel as sick as I do right now and Trinity and Madison need their mommy!
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