A Trip to the ER with Pleurisy...

My memory must have been very short that day because I got another pack the next day, intending to only smoke one to get me through that morning. Well, who can throw away a pack you just paid $2 for and only smoke one? I couldn't...I kept going and tried to quit that afternoon and couldn't.

To make things worse, I was sneaking around...not smoking around my husband or daughter. I'd have one outside where I wasn't seen, or out in the workshop, or behind the trellis in the garden, or go for a trip to the store. Now, there was an added element of "danger", as in "I could get caught smoking by my family". Yeah, that's me...living life in the fast lane! I couldn't seem to quit and I hated being sneaky about it, so eventually I told them I'd started up again, enabling me to smoke more.

You'd think I would have an easier time coming off of cigarettes this time! After all, I'd quit successfully for 7 whole months before! Well, I'm here to tell y'all that I now truly believe that smoking is like "they" say it is...harder to quit than cocaine! Now, I've never had any cocaine, but I have talked to someone who had been addicted to both cocaine and cigarettes, and the man managed to quit cocaine and alcohol, but do you know...he was still smoking. He said it was harder for him to quit tobacco than anything else he'd ever done.

One late August evening, I was watching a movie on TV with my family and smoking one of my "cheap" Austin Lights(I was back up to about two packs a day, by the way)...when all of a sudden, I couldn't take a normal breath!! Every time I breathed in, before the breath was halfway taken, I would get a bad stabbing pain in my back, around the lung area! Now, since I was famous for shortness of breath already, this cut my breathing and comfortability down to next to nothing! So, my husband tosses me in the car, and off we race, back over to the emergency room, and I can't wait till we get there! I am breathing shallowly and being very, very worried that the next might not come at all.

At least when we got there, they recognized it as an emergency of the caliber where they didn't let you sit in the waiting room at all. They started me on massive doses of the same stuff I get in my inhaler...Albuterol. They did the blood gases test again...oh, those are so painful! I was starting to feel better about an hour after I got there, when they tossed the breathing machine at me again. This time, it made me overdose on the stuff, and it started my stabbing pains again, which turned out to be pleurisy, which I'd never experienced before, or since...and hope I never do again! Anyway, the upshot of it was, they fixed me up at the ER and sent me home.

The next day, I went to my scheduled lung doctor appointment. He had already been notified of my "antics" of the night before. He chided me for having to go the the ER with pleurisy and then checked me over. He got real serious and said..."Christine, if you don't get serious about quitting RIGHT NOW, I don't think you'll be alive for another 5 years." The diagnosis now was emphysema. Well, that was on August 29, 1995, and I'm still kicking. But, I kicked the NicoDemon for good that day, and am proud to say "I'm smoke-free today." I've only been able to do it one day at a time. I didn't use the patches this time. I decided to go cold turkey. Sure, I had withdrawals for a few days, but it was easier after those few days, and it was easier when I lived only one day at a time.

I'd been online at Prodigy and AOL for ages and had fallen in love with the Internet. I was no stranger to computers and now I was really fired up once I saw what the Internet had to offer. I jumped right in and learned how to make my own Web pages with friends and Prodigy's help. When I quit smoking that last time, I decided that I needed insurance to be sure I didn't smoke again. When in AA, I learned that one of the BEST things I could possibly do for myself was to help other people and so I came up with "The No Smoke Cafe" on the Net a couple of months after I quit.

I can honestly say I am very proud to be a part of the lives of the thousands of people who have come through the Cafe in that short time. I also was asked to be the Smoking Cessation Guide at the Mining Company, (now called About.com) where I could help in some small way, still thousands of others. I guess you could say I just wanted to "make a difference" in the lives of other smokers who wanted to quit, and I pray that the Cafe and About.com's Smoking Cessation has made a difference in YOUR life for the better too. You have all made a BIG difference in my life, and have helped to keep me smoke-free for all this time. I couldn't have done it without you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you! God Bless you all! ((((huggzzzzz)))) Christine