Posted on 01/26/2005 3:06:33 PM PST by Rennes Templar
There are two kinds of conversations about Johnny Carson. One kind is the one most of you are having. It is light and interesting, about showbiz, TV, popular culture. Then there is the other conversation many of us have been avoiding.
-snip-
A part of it (the conversation)landed on my desk with a little thump. It was a package, about the size of your palm, with a brown camel on it, two pyramids and three palm trees.
"You can have them," said a friend who tossed them, casual in voice, though there was no missing the symbolism of it, his casting away of the Camels.
"I'm done with them," he said. "I quit."
-snip-
Carson's death could have been due to pneumonia, to infection, or it could have been respiratory failure. Either way it was private, and ugly.
I thought of him suffering amidst tubes.
"You can quit," Dr. Gross said. "You can have a life. You can quit."
I've failed before. And I'm afraid of failing. But Johnny Carson convinced me.
If you're interested in doing the same, you can call the American Lung Association at 312-243-2000.
jskass@tribune.com
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...
No crutches, no patches, no game-playing, just a spontaneous decision that I stuck with.
I can't tell you how healthier I am in so many ways........and now I can even sing along with the oldie-goldie radio station instead of sounding like Clarence "Frogman" Henry (croaker of "Ain't Got No Home" on Rush show).
Leni
That would explain the guy who smokes all his life, lives to be 103, and dies of a gunshot wound.
"No one dies of old age any more. "
No one ever has! Instead a body simply gets so old that it can no longer heal itself and you then die of something, but never of age itself.
By the way, few people realize that virtually EVERYONE gets cancers multiple times during their lives, but the body naturally fights it off. This is one of the reasons that some believe that cancer can be thought of as a form of infection.
The national average for death is 76 years.
Yes, Johnny lived to die a little beyond the national death age. The only thing is that dieing of emphysema or congestive heart failure from smoking, asbestos, etc. has such a long period of suffering before death.
My father, who maybe had a cigarette or two when he was a boy, never smoked after that time, just turned 93 on the 7th of this month.
That's the good thing about Nicotrol inhaler -- it is an impregnated sponge that gives a "hit" similar to a cigarrete (also you can use it on a plane).
My mom was on an oxygen tank too and did the same thing -- but I understood why.
I still miss her terribly. A finer woman has never been born.
I used the Nicorette gum. It was painless (follow the directions!)
Non-smoker here, and my husband another freeper is not a smoker.
I've seen photos taken by maxillofacial prosthodonists of people who literally have no faces...just eyes and a hole where their nose and mouth should be. The severe results of mouth cancer from smoking. Granted, that kind of effect is rare, but who would want to risk it?
I loved Johnny Carson
On a side note I lost one my best friends coming home from a family get together on his motorcycle because some guy was drinking and decided to not watch out and he sent my friend head first (wearing a helmet in a state doesn’t require one) in to a curb head first. Well the helmet was shattered and so was head. He was 16. He smoked. And he is dead.
I also have had a family member that was murdered in a home invasion. She was 33 she was stabbed and strangled with the cord from her toaster. She was mentally handicap and this was her first place from living with her parents on her own. She was a soft target. She didn’t smoke.
I also have one of our last WWII vets in my family that still smokes. Hes alive and well. Well I don’t how well but hes still kicking around
Don’t get me wrong life is precious but I really don’t believe all this stuff. And everyday you walk your door you could be done.
Im trying to quit and I know it’s a gross habit but I still like it and I’m 37
My father was diagnosed with laryngeal cancer in '92. He had a laryngectomy. I can still remember driving him around and when we would pass a convenient store he would say how he wished he could have a smoke. He smoked Lucky Strikes for what seemed like forever. He passed in '93. He was 58.
Sort of like that Kinsey report. You know, 10 percent are gay ...
LOL!
Excellent post.
I have read that smoking cures cancer, or was it that cancer cures smoking?
I was in the bar business when I quit cigs. I was horribly addicted. A friend told me that I could drink more and not have as bad a hangover if I didn't smoke cigs. (two pack a day habit)That was in 1978. He was right. It worked so well that I got sober in 1997. Tobacco is a killer addiction. I would have never smoked if it weren't for my father setting the example. He died in 98 of lung cancer.
I was 32 when I quit. I am 57 today and absolutely convinced that I would very ill or physically limited today if I still smoked. If you are a smoker. Get free!! Just do it. The rewards are too many to list...
"...with the flu, he couldn't smoke..."
I think if one can go a couple days without smoking and then realize that the physical part is over, then it becomes easier to just tell oneself that its all just a matter of not picking up the first one.
No. He died because he smoked and got sick. Smoking destroyed his lungs.
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