A question to ponder?

Had a bunch of construction guys working in my yard laying new water and sewer lines up and down the block. Everyone of them was a smoker. Alot of the neighbors were out watching them dig and do there work. A couple of them asked me what happened when they saw my neck scar. I smoked
very little compared to most. I honestly smoked about 5 to 6 cig's per day. I see most smokers who light up one right after the other. I want to tell them not to so they don't get what I got. I also have some good friends who continue to smoke
after seeing what i am going thru. It offends me that good friends of mine continue to smoke after seeing what it did and is doing to me. Am i off base in voicing my opinion to current smokers?
Any opinions?

You have to wonder about people who continue to live in negative habits when the obvious results of those behaviors are staring them in the face. You can try to talk to people, but addictions are more powerful sometimes than logic. You have nothing to lose by trying, but do not expect to change tons of smokers into non-smokers. And be prepared for some

Dear Brian,
Just to add my 2 cents......I think the motivational speakers should go to middle schools or, even, I am sorry to say, the grade schools.
Judy U

I posted this link earlier but for the newcomers check this out... http://www.sptimes.com/News/61599/Floridian/He_wanted_you_to_know.shtml

Dear Gary,
That was the most moving article and pictures I have seen in a very long time. Thank you so much for sending it. I had thought that the picture of myself post neck dissection was enough to keep my off the cigs.....This was the icing on the cake. If only one person can be dissuaded from smoking, you have performed a miracle here.
Thank you
Judy U

Gary, a very impressive article which I hope can arouse teenagers' concern about the hazards of smoking. Like USA, the smokers population in Hong Kong is getting younger. I cannot convince my relatives not to smoke with my own experience because they argue that I developed cancer even though I was not a smoker. They added that some Chinese political leaders who were heavy smokers lived a long life. So smokers have a lot of excuses not to quit smoking. That is really a worrying phenomenon.

Karen stage 4 tonsil cancer diagnosed in 9/01.

Gary, the article sent chills up my spine.

When I realized I had oral cancer, and I didn't really need the docs to tell me, I collected all the cigarett packs, lighters, etc and threw them in the trash, and never looked back. Quit cold turkey right then and there. 8 o'clock on a Sunday morning, had been surfing the net about the symptoms, and pretty much came to the conclusion. Hardest part was telling my then fiancee what was going on.

Fast forward a year and a half later, and I still can't figure out my co-workers who still smoke. Karen, you must experience this to some extent, but Hong Kong is a little better, at least you can't smoke in shopping malls and elevators, but living in China, seems that everyone male smokes, and "NO SMOKING" is not in the vocabulary.

The in-laws came over recently, of course the father lights up, even though there's not an ashtray within miles. I ask my wife to tell him to smoke out on the balcony if he has to smoke, and well, apparently it's not acceptable here to ask a visitor not to smoke. So, if I didn't like the smoking, I had to leave my own apartment. One of those time when it's a good thing I'm not fluent in Chinese.

At the end of the day though, people are only going to quit if they really want to. I've had friends laugh at the anti-smoking commercials, one friend has cigarette packs from Canada that show the affects of smoking. A source of amusement. (By the way, his father also has oral cancer)

Some folks will never learn.
Bob

Hi, When I had my first operation, a femur flap, a nurse helped me walk the first couple of times. He said you do not want to go outside do you? No it is too cold. Good, The last time I walked a guy outside that had had your operation, he reached in his robe, covered his trach and lit up!I was stunned even though I had been a smoker. The fellow told him he was not going to change his life style because of this, one thing or another was going to kill him anyway. he said when he got home he was going to get a 6 pack and put beer down his PEG. I asked my Doctor later and he said , yes cover the trach and smoke. Good Grief, You would think they would choke! When you see the high stats for Oral Cancer , think of all the people who will not do a single thing to try to prevent it from coming back.Everyone thinks, "It will not happen to me, or if it does I will be too old to care."

Hi Bob,
Well I learned! Back in 1976 I worked for Siemens Medical Labs, you know, the company that builds linear accelerators that many of us have been treated on (it's usually either them or Varian). When I would go out to hospitals to work on the machines I would watch the sometimes near dead patients being rolled in, ashen and gurgling -actually saw a few die in the middle of treatment. I would also read the cover page of their charts, during downtime, and EVERY one stated "...patient, heavy smoker, 25 years, carcinoma of the lower left (right) lobe..." I admit I was far more concerned about lung cancer than oral cancer but it made a lasting impression on me. In 1976 smoking was still legal in the workplace. In spite of this, many who worked at Siemens were heavy smokers (even more ironically, I received my treatment on a Siemens LINAC).
I am sorry that the culture there has such disregard for good health in the amoking area. The Europeans aren't much different. The last time I was in Munich there were no no-smoking sections anywhere.

Since I only smoked for about 5 years, I believe my cancer was the result of second hand smoke from all those years of playing in smokey bars and clubs (I am sure that the pot I smoked didn't help either - and then there's the folks who have suggested to me to obtain "medical marijuana" but that's another story).

My stepkids smoke -go figure -they have been fairly up close and personal with this through me and it hasn't made an iota of a difference. I mean what part of "... this is the most preventable cause of death..." don't they understand???

I had a neighbor who smoked through the hole in his throat (gross) -appropriately, he died. And yes, there were patients who snuck cigarettes in the bathroom at the UCSF Medical Center in the radiation oncology area. God bless 'em - they make my statistical survival odds go up! Keep smoking those cigarettes!

(footnote -this is irony -get it? I really wish that no one smoked and that the product had never been invented)

In the almost 20 years I have owned my home there has NEVER been a cigarette smoked in the house. I feel strongly enough about this that they would be marched out at gunpoint. If God came over and wanted to light up - He'd have to do it on the porch. A nearby city is passing an ordinance that it is illegal to smoke within 20 feet of a building -my how far we have come! I guess living in the People's Republik of Kalifornia has some benefits after all.

There is a renewed push for the FDA to regulate the nicotine content in tobacco products - Write your congressperson to tell them you support this. It will have to be written into law in the Federal Register before the FDA can enforce it. In lieu of an outright ban, this might be an important first step.

I am one of the lucky ones (if you believe in luck), who had a good outcome with my scare with cancer. I came onto this site after my doctor and my dentist showed concern over an ulcer they said they saw in the back of my throat. Several g.p.s, two oral surgeons and an ENT doctor later, all saying they could see nothing abnormal, I'm at last feeling relief and very, very thankful. I too, never worried about getting oral cancer, (even though I smoked two to two and a half packs of cigarettes a day and drank more then my share of beer), because I never knew anything about it. My big worry was lung cancer, and only that because of commercials and what was printed on the side of cigarette packages. You never saw "may cause oral cancer" on the side of a pack of cigarettes. Doctors never told me to quit because of the damage it could do to my throat, tongue, or gums, only because of the damage it could do to my lungs. So, I'd go in once a year to have chest xrays taken (I have granulomas on my lungs and once had a tb test come back positive, so annual chest xrays were ordered by my physician), and I'd be a complete mess the week waiting for the results, but when they'd come back "no change".....I'd light another cigarette up, celebrating, thinking I had a clean bill of health and another year to quit before the next xray. I started smoking at the age of 13, picking up butts from my dads ashtray. Back then (I'm 48 now) my dad would send me out to buy him cigarettes and our local grocer would sell them to me, no questions asked. My dad wisened up a lot sooner then I did. He quit smoking about (I'm not exactly sure when, but he could tell you the EXACT date, and not "about" when) twenty years ago. AFTER he quit, he was diagnosed with emphazema, which went from emphazema to severe emphazema, and has had two heart attacks, the first one requiring seven bypasses. This was several years AFTER his quiting. I have three siblings, all of whom have smoked in the past, but out of the four of us, only two continued to smoke after all my dad had gone thru, myself and my sister. Even after seeing all he had gone thru, his using a neubulizer, oxygen, and looking like death warmed over after his surgery, we continued to smoke. We wouldn't dare smoke in his home or around him (out of respect), but yet we continued to puff away. He would beg us to quit, tried every way he could think of to get us to stop....pleading, calling us "stupid" and anything else he could think of....all falling upon deaf ears. Over the years I've tried to figure out why we didn't listen to him, and I came to the conclusion that until it actually affects yourself, that we tend to think of ourselves as indestructable. Now I'm trying to get my son to quit his drinking and chewing, and he tells me he believes "it's all in the numbers". He has a grandma (my husbands mom) who is 86 years old and still smokes and drinks, and is battling breast cancer and alzheimers, but has had any problems from her bad habits), so he uses her as an example in, "it's all in the numbers". Although he's seen all his grandpa (my dad) has gone thru, he's also seen his grandma (my husbands mom) smoke and drink her way into her eighties, so I guess he's thinking his "numbers" theory will follow hers? When I went thru "detox" classes, I was told that nicotine addiction is more powerful then cocaine addiction, and I believe this. Only even then, the doctors and therapists told me not to worry about my nicotine addiction, to first give up alcohol. Not to try to conquer too many addictions at one time. So, this was, to me, a reason to continue smoking. It wasn't until I actually had my own personal doctor and dentist tell me that they thought that I had something that could be cancer, that I quit smoking. Seeing an uncle and aunt die from emphazema, a grandpa die from heart failure (all of whom smoked and drank) and my dad, who I love and respect dearly) go thru all he's gone thru, still didn't "bring it home" to me.......because I, like my son, thought, "it won't happen to me", UNTIL I thought it did. And even after that, I have relapsed with my drinking.......so, I guess all we can do is pray that our children and people we love, won't be as ignorant or vulnerable, as some of us have been. You can preach, beg, and plead with people to quit bad habits, but for the most of us, I believe, that until it hits home, or happens directly to us, that it falls upon deaf ears.