Read this to remind yourself why you gave up 4 years ago.

This story should be read by every person who smokes. Why? Because it's true, it's about me. It is not a "please be sorry for me" story . It is a warning to YOU and a plea to do whatever it takes to stop smoking and so killing yourself. That’s what you’re doing, committing suicide in a particularly horrible and protracted way. Cigarettes are not known as coffin nails for nothing.

A few months back, I was in hospital having a cancer operation on my foot-the third in 2012. (one also in 2013) While I was there, the chest consultant who is monitoring my COPD gave me a check up and told me, again and more forcibly than ever, that I would be doing very well indeed if I see out another 4 years. If I do, I will be 70 which in today's environment is the new 50. I intend to get there because I rather like life and I can be a stubborn s*d. But if I don't, what a stupid waste of a life it will have been and which I had no right to put at such incredibly high risk. Risk? Absolute copper bottomed certainty, rather. My wife will be a widow in her early sixties. My two sons had every right to expect that I would be around for the formative years of their children. My daughter in law produced her first baby in November, a boy, and while I am no lover of little babies, I should have been sufficiently responsible with my life to give him or her a good few years as a paternal grandfather. I will not be around to see him go to secondary school. That is an absolute, unequivocal, certainty.
And all this comes from being utterly and completely selfish- and stupid. I smoked for 40 years and it has destroyed my quality of life. It has also destroyed the quality of my wife’s life and that is utterly unforgivable. Believe me, there is absolutely no-one to blame except myself. I wish there were but I was certain it would never happen to me! Just like all of you smokers, in denial and lying to yourself and others about your daily cigarette consumption. You don’t think it will happen to you. It will. Be clear about it, it will.

I have been registered disabled with lower limb disabilities for some 25 years which, while very restricting in terms of mobility, has not been life limiting. Life changing, yes, life limiting, no. About 5 years ago, my wife couldn’t wake me up first thing in the morning and she telephoned for an ambulance. I was taken to the Intensive Care Unit because my respiratory system had completely shut down and I had rapidly become unconscious. There is no way of knowing how long I was in that state before my wife found me. In ICU, I remained unconscious for 48 hours, during which time my wife asked our minister pray over me as the hospital team were so uncertain as to my outcome. Fortunately I awoke and discovered tubes inside me via every possible orifice and I was plugged onto an oxygen tank. While I was unconscious, the ICU staff had started to pump out my lungs-a process that took 14 days. For the first 10 days the gunge being extracted was the colour and consistency of hot tar laid on road surfaces. Also while unconscious, because It was first thought I had advanced terminal lung cancer, I had extensive X Rays taken of my heart, lungs, brain and stomach. I was diagnosed with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder-COPD for short. This covers Chronic Bronchitis (not to be confused with a cold going to the chest or a minor infection) and Emphysema. I had developed the latter.
My smoking has now destroyed 75% of my lung function and every time I get pneumonia or other chest infection, there is a risk of a little bit more function going. Since first writing this article in June 2012, I have had another two attacks of pneumonia and my lung function has reduced to 25%-a further loss of 2%. COPD itself won't kill me but illnesses arising from my lower resistance will. So far, since COPD was diagnosed, I have had pneumonia or similar 17 times with 6 hospital admittances. Every time I become ill in this way, I have to stop exercising for weeks on end and my fitness goes back to square one. It is a cycle. Get fitter→Get ill→Lose fitness→ Get fitter→Get ill→Lose fitness.
Another effect of the COPD-which caused the respiratory system shutdown in the first place- is that while I was in shut down mode, my brain was starved of oxygen. X-rays showed cell damage and this has resulted in significant short term memory loss. Often the consequences of this make me look a prat which, of course, I am but I don't really want others to say it to my face and mean it. 3 months ago, I developed cellulitis in my left leg which then became infected and I am still battling with this. Cellulityis can be traced back to the effect smoking had upon my blood circulation. I am also now prediabetic.
Let me give you some details of my day.

1. Because my breathing system is compromised, I have low oxygen circulation while I sleep. So I have developed Sleep Apnia. I wake at least 3 time per night. The sleep I get is very shallow and is far from restful. That means I drop off during the day, usually when it is least convenient. So I have to take energy tablets to do anything approaching exercise. But, as I take thyroxine which increases the metabolic rate, I have to space out when I take them as they too increase the metabolic rate. Too high a metabolic rate can over pressurise the heart of someone with pulmonary malfunction.
2. As soon as I wake up for the final time -about 5.30am, I inhale steroids-this is to keep minor infection at bay. This will also be repeated last thing at night. I then also inhale( twice) from a bronchoinhaler which keeps the airways open for 24 hours at survival level followed by the first (of many) inhalations of the day of Ventolin to get a short term airways opening. 20 minutes is then spent doing deep breathing exercises. That routine allows me to get out of bed.
3. A shower and shave takes 30 minutes and a further shot of Ventolin. Even so, I am breathless.
4. Walking downstairs is OK. Walking upstairs is bad news.-I am breathless.-takes about 10 minutes to recover.
5. Bending down to do up my shoes makes me breathless. More Ventolin.
6 Walking to the car and putting on the seat belt makes me breathless. More Ventolin.
7. I can't shop in the town centre because, although I have a blue badge, the no parking restrictions on double yellow lines have been extended to include disabled drivers. The nearest available parking is too far away from the shops to make it feasible to walk-It would take me at least 30 minute.
8. Because my legs are disabled, I can't walk properly or painlessly. BUT I have to exercise to keep my lungs as efficient as I can make them. If I didn't, lung function would further diminish. “Use it or lose it”. So I gym. What I do at the gym in an hour, someone with good lungs could do in 15-20 minutes. 30 minutes at the most. As mentioned earlier, I have to stop exercise every time I get a chest infection, usually for weeks, and my fitness reverts. It is incredibly frustrating.
9. When I park in the gym car park, I take a shot of Ventolin to help while I walk the 70 metres to the entrance. I stop 3 times to catch my breath. During my work out, I use the Ventolin inhaler at least 5 times.
10. I take 45 minutes to cut our lawn with numerous Ventolin breaks. My wife takes 15! To dig the vegetable area takes me 2 days and my wife 4 hours.
11 If I have a sniffle, sneeze or cough, I have to phone the GP as a matter of priority to get mega strong steroids and antibiotics. At present I'm prescribed antibiotics only in extremis because I was beginning to build up a resistance to them. The strong steroids do something to ones system that translates to huge weight gain for not much food. I'm now 7 stone heavier than I was 5 years ago.
12. Most strong medicines have side effects. My saliva glands hardly work so I have to take in liquid frequently and I chew gum virtually full time. My skin is dry and flaky so have to moisturise and need to wash my hair daily. I retain water so I have to take a water tablet daily. There is also the weight issue mentioned above. The steroid powder causes oral thrush and over time rots the teeth. I have had 3 removed recently. One of the medications, I think it is the steroids, affects temperament. This manifests itself in easily provoked irritability.

Friends. COPD sucks big time and, (industrial causation apart which accounts for less than 5% of all cases) it is totally avoidable. COPD is a disease of choice. Choose to smoke, get COPD. If you smoke, stop. Stop, now. If you have a cigarette lit as you read this, stub it out and sling the packet away. Just bl**dy stop! I know it’s hard. It's an addiction-like heroin is to a drug addict, alcohol is to an alcoholic. It's so, so hard but you must do it. If not for yourself, then for your partner, parents, children, grandchildren. You do not have the right to deprive them of your life or to make yourself a burden on them when it is utterly avoidable.
Every time you smoke a *kitten*, you damage your lungs. EVERY TIME. Every single regular smoker will have their health adversely affected-even smoking just 1 a day.
Like alcoholics, you will always be a recovering addict. Just one *kitten* can put you back on them.
Oh and by the way. Give up smoking and your partner might like kissing you more when you don't taste like an ash tray. Your clothes won't stink, you teeth and fingers won't get stained and here's some good news. Your libido gets better. Unless you have COPD. then the mind is willing but the flesh is so weak it can't do it!
Here is a response I received at an showing of my message earlier this year. It can’t be much starker, can it?.
“Thank you for your post Richard.

My dad died of throat cancer when he was 50 years old, choking on his own vomit. I'm sorry if this offends anyone - I know it paints a very graphic picture.

I was 11 years old. He didn't see me get married, or meet his grand-daughter. He wasn't there when a boy first broke my heart or to tell me I was wearing far too much make-up and wasn't "going out dressed like that" like all my friends' dads did.

We both missed out on so much and all for a cigarette.
A mother with a daughter of her own”
IF YOU ARE MAKING NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS & YOU’RE A SMOKER, JUNK THEM AND HAVE JUST ONE “TO BREAK YOUR EVIL, DEATH INDUCING, NICOTINE ADDICTION BY STOPPING SMOKING.


Rick

Smokers should read EVERY SINGLE WORD of that! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Rick is a great man, with good advice (and a wicked sense of humour) those words helped me :flowerforyou: