tobacco rant

[jawnbc]

I can’t speak to how much fun dying from lung cancer or heart disease is, but I know from emphysema (also known as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, COPD). That’s what Ma’s dying from.

She has lost the ability to respirate naturally. She cannot take a full breath, because she cannot fill her lungs. Their elasticity is virtually gone. When she falls into deep REM sleep she wakes up gasping for breath. If she talks too quickly it takes several minutes to regain her wind.

She coughs--constantly, rattling, mucousy coughs--but can’t get much to come up. If it’s too dry she can’t breath; if it’s too humid she hyperventilates--and can’t breath. She cannot walk, or push herself in a wheel chair, and she’s less and less able to feed herself (it exhausts her).

And this is all while being on oxygen 24/7.

But the hardest part is the fear in her eyes. Will this coughing fit be the one that puts me on a ventilator forever? Will this gasping attack become respiratory failure? Have I reached the stage where I can’t get enough of the gunk out of my lungs, effectively drowning in it? I cannot imagine the terror she must feel.

But she’s a fighter, and won’t give up. So we’re with her--go Ma! Though I could live with it if she decided enough’s enough.


My mother began smoking in an era where the ramifications of cigarette use were unclear. Today we know better. It must be really, really hard to quit, but please don’t use abstract justifications for continuing to smoke. Because, even if you’re ok with hastening your demise through smoking, those who love you don’t get to choose to watch.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s much, much harder for Ma. Totally. But it’s horrible for all of us.

Tobacco companies: corporate scum at their worst. Purveyors of misery. They think we’re stoopid enough--they rely on it. And in places where people are smartening up (US, Canada, Europe), they’re moving their efforts to the developing worlds, where information on the dire consequences of smoking are less accessible.

Heartless fucking bastards.

Comments

[quirkstreet.livejournal.com]

Hugs, honey.

[gfrancie.livejournal.com]

We went through this in my family. My Grandmother who had never smoked a day in her life suddenly became quite sick. It was rather strange. She suddenly went on oxygen, her organs were shutting down and she went into a coma and died. Cancer completely took over her body. But where it was the worst was in the lungs which were pretty black like a smoker's.
My Grandfather though smoked through a good portion of their marriage. He quit about fifteen years before she died. Mind you he quit because he developed emphysema and often wheezed and had to have the inhaler and was quite barrell-chested. I don't think he ever quite forgave himself for her death. What really kills me too is my Uncle (their son) used to smoke around them all the time when he would come over. It pissed the whole family off but he was thought of as their golden boy so they let him.

Then later on, my Grandfather was dying of cancer and also his liver was crapping out (the cocktail culture for all those years had pickled the damn thing) and it was really hard to watch him go. He started smoking in the seascouts. Then in the Navy they handed them out with his kit. God bless the tobacco companies, most men had no chance.

My Mother quit about twenty years ago as well. She said she was in a hospital waiting for a friend when this man dying of cancer was coming through and the man turned to the nurse wheeling him about and said, "if you smoke...quit." That did it for my Mother.

I am truly convinced those things are fucking death.

[carharttmo.livejournal.com]

Hugs and thoughts!

[that-dang-otter.livejournal.com]

Very much in agreement. Cigarettes are a horrible addiction.

I would comment on this though: please don’t use abstract justifications for continuing to smoke.

I've always been puzzled over the concept of "justification" when it comes to habits. For example, recent research into the effect of light alcohol consumption on cardiac health caused a big flap about how it would be used to "justify" drinking.

The whole thing strikes me as false consciousness. It seems unlikely to me that any source of "justification" actually affects the process of addiction, and it seems very strange to me that personal habits would need to be "justified" in the first place. I am aware of the phenomenon of denial - and the abuse of the concept of denial, false accusations thereof seeming to be more common than the thing itself - but in cases where denial actually manifests, is it really productive to address the "justification", which seems like a distraction, rather than the objective consequences?

The use of the term in this way seems to lead into a big muddle, when the situation is actually very simple.

[Incidentally, I was diagnosed with "emphysema" a few years back following a chest X-ray I had due to a mild pneumonia. The only cause of emphysema in young non-smokers is very bad indeed: alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, which is fatal. So for six months, I was looking forward to just this sort of untimely demise sometime in my early 40s. Alas, a battery of genetic and pulmonary tests indicated that I was, in the words of my respirologist, "perfectly fine, but very strange."]

[jawnbc]

a posteriori use of the term here. Meaning they ascribe attributes to the experience of smoking (or the "being" of being a smoker) after they've become addicted. Things like "I really enjoy smoking" or "everyone dies of something some time" or (my favourite) "we're ________, it's part of our culture to enjoy a smoke."

And not incidentally...

[that-dang-otter.livejournal.com]

...condolences for all the suffering your mother's illness is causing. My mother is in a similar situation, which is greatly complicated by lupus. It isn't easy. Hang in there.

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

There isn't much I can add to what your friends have already said and what you have outlined in your post, except to nod my head in agreement. My Dad smoked a pipe for 58 years till his stroke 2 1/2 years ago. He was arguing just two days later with the doctor while in the hospital, face partially paralyzed, that smoking isn't addictive....

It does affect the family, not just the one with the health crisis. I will keep your Mom, you and your family in my heart and thoughts. May you find strength through the support of your friends, even virtual ones such as I am. Hugs!

[ruralrob.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry to hear what you're going through. But I have to applaud you for the message.

I smoked until two and a half years ago. How damned stupid I was until then.

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Unclear? The connection between smoking and lung cancer was printed in the Journal of New England Medical Association over one hundred years ago. The tobacco companies have deliberately withheld, obscured, hidden this information from the public.

Mother didn't live long enough to catch emphysema; she died from various arterial obstructions which were a direct result of her four pack a day habit. Her sister, my aunt Goneril, has had two separate bouts of lung cancer each requiring the removal of a node, and throat cancer resulting in a tracheotomy.

[jawnbc]

Unclear, as in not widely available. I'm sure Ma hadn't even heard for NEJM until she went to nursing school in the late 70s.

Sorry about your Mother and aunt.

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Of course no one heard about the NEJM article because it was effectively buried. There were any of a number of other serious scholarly articles published, but which were buried. This doesn't speak to society's confusion, yet serves as an example of the industry's hold on society, dig?

[jawnbc]

I totally dig. But I think it's also a lot to do with the huge gap between regular folk and scientific/medical literature of the day. Everything from high school science to media reports of innovation and discovery were so much thinner before the 60s--when the race to the Moon ostensibly democratized science, to some extent.

I don't dispute your point though.

[danbearnyc.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, Camelot.

[puzzld1.livejournal.com]

Amen, brother!

Nuff said.

[guysterrules.livejournal.com]

My prayers and with you and your family, and your mom.

[sunsmogseahorse.livejournal.com]

Just went to a fine presentation on evidence-based HIV prevention interventions for gay men. The presenter said she'd recently been at something or other at NIH and the question came up during a session: "Gay men know what transmits HIV; why are they continuing to do those things?"

To which the NIH official heading the thing said "If behavioral change were easy, I'd be thin."

[jawnbc]

However, I reject any conflation of eating or sex with smoking. There is no biological imperative to inhale smoke.

[quetzalcoatl.livejournal.com]

John, this is your angst, not mine, so my intent here is to comment empathetically, not grandstandingly. My mother died 7 years ago as a result of brain tumours, which were secondaries from the small-cell carcinoma tumour in her lungs/chest, caused by smoking.

The only "saving grace" was the speed at which it all happened, but the time we had to care for her at home, before we could get her into palliative care, as her brain malfunctioned and then shut down, piece by piece, where, as one example, she could remember Latin, but lost control of bodily functions, was one of the most searing experiences I've ever had. (the time in hospital was surreal, but that's another story)

Reading your entries is not easy, but my thoughts are with you.

[jawnbc]

No worries David, even in times of stress I'm usually not a "me queen". I appreciate this stuff cuts close for some of my friends. And you're not a "oh yeah you think yours was _____, mine was, like this _______" kind of person.

[epinoid.livejournal.com]

I doubt there are many families who haven't been touched by at least a few of the tobacco related illnesses.

I am sorry for you and your mom and hope she can get some relief from at least the fear.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Amen to all you've said, and to what most of the commenters commentors comment-makers have said. My dad never smoked (not quite true: while burning trash as a kid, he saw smoke wisping from the corrugations in a piece of cardboard and inhaled it. That learned him good, and after that he never smoked.) Nevertheless, I got to watch his body fail piecewise as his non-hodgkins lymphoma progressed. There aren't sufficiently descriptive adjectives for the hell that is watching a loved one die slowly. Knowing they had the power to prevent it but didn't act in time (in the case of a cigarette smoker) has to be a hundred times worse.

One thing that really gets my goat is apologists for the cigarette industry. "Tobacco is a part of America's heritage!" "Cigarette smoking has benefits, but we never hear about them because they don't fit the government's approved message." "Cigarette smokers are the vanguard of the struggle to keep freedom alive." That last one, especially. Slavery equals freedom? George Orwell smiles.

I'm on infinitessimally-thin ice commenting to this extent, 'cause I've never experienced cigarette addiction. That said, ironically, there is one argument the tobacco companies make that really resonates with me: Lots of people quit smoking every year (and some proportion of those people quit by methods other than death). Cigarette withdrawal is universally acknowledged as difficult and painful and frustrating, but none of those is a synonym for "impossible" or "deadly".

As for the corporate-scum aspect: A thousand times yes. They've known for *ages* exactly what they were doing—marketing a product whose effect is to cause the user to want another one, and which when used as directed tends to kill its user. They're hamstrung in the first world, now, and reparations are being exacted, so as you say, they're handing out free cigarettes to school kids in the 3rd world.

Amazing.

And as if that weren't brazen enough,

[danthered.livejournal.com]

the tobacco companies are even telling governments that not regulating smoking can save money by killing off their citizens so they stop costing money (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1443098.stm).

[beverly-sutphin.livejournal.com]

akk. i'm so sorry john. what a harsh time this is for you :(

on the subject of smoking... man, is it ever hard to quit. i think it was the most difficult thing i've ever quit (and, as you know, i've quit quite a few things *heh*). smoked for 12-15 years, quit for a little over 2 now. after having finally kicked it (and swearing i'd never become one of those ex-smoker jerks, i am now one of those ex-smoker jerks. i hate the tobacco comapnies and... ughh this could go on to be a huge rant... how about i just say, "love you!" and i hope things go as smoothly as possible for you and your ma.