COPD robs your family of you

[Supersix]

When I was 9 in the early 70s I visited one of my relatives he was a heavy smoker and had to have a whole in his throat to help him breath, this scared me so muh that I have never even tried smoking

My mother was a smoker as was my father last Friday 8 July my father died from COPD he had been repeatadly in and out of hospital the last 2 years and only came out last week. To watch someone slowly die from this disease which was caused from smoking nothing else is not nice what is worse for me is that he refused to stop smoking this angered me so much that I refused to vsit him in hospital in a hope that this would work but no he continued.

No one got to say goodbye as he died in a 30min window from having his medication at 6.30am from the district nurse to my wife finding him at 07.10.

As a son I have mixed emotions from anger because his refusel to stop smoking makes me feel that smoking was more important than his family smoking has robbed his grand children and great gran children and his 4 sons of a father.

Please when the doctor tells you to stop smoking because of your copd STOP so that you can have as much time with your family as possible

[valerieglasgow]

I also have COPD. It was very hard to stop smoking but I did it. I finally had to ask myself Valerie do you want to breathe or do you want to smoke. Thank God I chose breathing. I'm so sorry for what you and family have gone through. Thank you for listening

[pettymary14 in reply to valerieglasgow]

Good for you, have an easy breathing day.

[cschene]

I have stage 4 COPD with an FEV of 26% and I did not smoke. The doctor believes my COPD was caused by my chronic Asthma, a medical mistake when I was 2 and possibly industrial fiberglass exposure. Something like 80% of COPD patients get it from smoking, the other 20% from other causes.

I lived a very healthy life: always exercising: 40 years martial arts, hiking, etc. eating well but I still got COPD. The doctor was shocked that I had never been hospitalized before for a COPD exacerbation. Turns out my heart is very strong, my muscles are strong and those actually compensated for my terrible lungs. My heart enlarged somewhat and beats faster than normal to get the Oxygen to my system faster and my muscles are very efficient (strong muscles use less Oxygen).

There seems to be no justice: I lived a healthy life and still got this horrible disease for other reasons that I had no control over.

One lesson I take from this: Be financially responsible and save and don't incur too much debt but live and enjoy life and don't pay any attention to those who say save 20-25% of you income because you may never live to spend it. I saved 10% of my income from the age of 30 onward. AT 64 with that and social security I am fine but not wealthy. Don't over save for your kids college or weddings: they have 25 years more time than you. Your first priority is your own assets and if you have extra and can afford, by all means save for your kids. Most of us cannot afford 200K for their college or 30k for a wedding. I split my daughter's wedding three ways between the grooms family, the couple and myself and the total cost was 14,000.

[LORBIC]

My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. You are right they do need to stop smoking but those of us who don't smoke need to keep our distance from those who do smoke, second hand smoke will send us into a flare very quickly.

[pettymary14]

My heart goes out to you. An excellent post. I shared it on FB. Maybe someone will put away the tobacco after reading your post.

[Imageimp in reply to pettymary14]

Just a question? Is it "acceptable" to share posts/information from here on FB without the writer's permission? I wouldn't want some of mine on FB, because people would probably recognize some of the things I might share...

[valiejean]

It's an addiction, he could not help himself. It's sad that you said you didn't get to say goodbye. You should have visitied him while you had the chance. I was a 40 yr smoker and the only thing that made me quit was I could no longer breathe enough to get the nicotine in. It's a horrible way to go. I hope you talk to him in your dreams and prayers, he may not be on this earth, but believe me he is still in the universe. Peace out

[Imageimp]

I'm so sorry you just lost your Dad... I can see your situation from both sides... My Dad smoked 4 packs/day for years from a very young age... He retired at 50 with a med disability from the Federal Gov't. (COPD/emphysema) and had been pretty sick since he was 45. My Mom never smoked, but Dad continued almost up to the time he died at 55 years old. My Mom hates cigarettes with a passion, and says for 10 years she watched him suffer more than she can describe... I remember seeing him sitting on the edge of the bed, bent over trying to breathe, gulping at a "Primatine Mist" over-the-counter inhaler. After he died, Mom was devastated to find a loaded revolver in the nightstand beside Dad's bed...

Your Dad didn't make a choice to abandon you and your family. He really didn't "choose" cigarettes at all by that point, because by then they'd chosen him. I'm so sorry you thought you could influence his addiction by staying away, because, sadly, it just doesn't work that way. Please forgive him, and yourself, because you need to heal your bitterness and grief and anger for your own sake and your own family. Be kind to yourself...

The other side of my situation? Well, at 17 I started college (Dad was already disabled/retired then), and idiotically succumbed to peer pressure in the girls' dorm (required living for freshmen!) to start smoking. (I was the only girl on the whole floor of a high-rise dorm that didn't smoke). It must be a genetic thing, because I liked it almost from the start, and never looked back for over 35 years. NO ONE could make me quit - not doctors, friends, my poor Mom, boyfriends - NO ONE! At the urging and pleading of everyone else, I went to smoking cessation classes, wore the "patch" (and smoked on it...), hypnosis, and on and on. I simply didn't want to quit because I liked cigs - needed them? When I was 54 (one year younger than my Dad when he died...) I was miserable with a bad cold but was housesitting for a friend. I ran out of butts about 3 AM, but I felt so awful I didn't want to get dressed and drive around trying to find someplace open to buy smokes. Maybe I'd dropped one under the car seat sometime in the past? I took a flashlight and almost laid on my belly to check under all the seats - nada! Maybe there was even 1/2 " left short of the filter on one in the ashtray? How about the rear seat ashtrays (no idea who's butts those were!) All of a sudden, I had this sort of overview picture of myself rummaging around under car seats with a flashlight, and then pawing through cigarette butts in dirty ashtrays, and somehow I made a decision for myself, by myself. How disgusting was this?! How out of control was I?! How could I allow myself to fall this low? YUCK!!! I quit!! And - that's exactly what I did. I've never had another puff since, and truly haven't had real problems with that. I was "twitchy" for a few days, but it wasn't nearly as uncomfortable or hard as I expected, and I can only attribute that to the fact that I had made up and focused my own mind - that I had decided for myself and no one else. I think that's the only way it can ever work? Unfortunately, that wasn't soon enough, because I was diagnosed with COPD and emphysema shortly after. Realistically, I'm sure I'd be dead now had I continued...