“I don’t smoke and can’t stand cigarette smoke but he’s basically living under a death sentence right now. If he wants to chain smoke 24X7 and it gives him a little pleasure, that’s his business.”
I feel the same way. When Dad was dying of lung cancer 3 years ago, my stupid, liberal brother took it upon himself to be the smoke nazi. I ripped him a new one, and told everyone involved that they were NOT to take Dad’s cigarettes away or hassle him about it (right in front of Dad). As a former hospice nurse, I feel that the nicotine hit did him more good than any of the antianxiety meds they were trying to shove down his throat.
He would chain smoke when my brother was around. If I was there, I lit the cigarette, he took a few drags, and saved the rest for later. He didn’t seem to need as much then. It was all up to him, and it was important that he did things his way. It was no big deal to me. That was one thing that I could do for the poor dear.
Both my parents died of lung cancer. My Dad had actually stopped smoking cold turkey about 3 months before he was diagnosed. He stopped smoking, hoping it would help my mother quit. That never happened. My Mom was on oxygen in her apartment for about a month before she died. She used to turn it off, go down the hall into the stairwell, and smoke her cigarettes, then go back and put the oxygen mask back on. We never bothered to say anything because we all knew she was terminal anyway.