CIGARETTE ANYONE?
Why you shouldn't smoke and what it is like to have Emphysema from those with the disease.
- Contributed by members of
- EFFORTS
- (Emphysema Foundation For Our Right To Survive)
Click on above to visit our website - EFFORTS
Most of us started smoking back in the 40's and 50's. The money spent, even back then, by the tobacco companies, were in the billions of dollars, just in advertisements and cigarette handouts. Even now, their advertising dollars are directed to the younger generation. If you would like a sampling of the older advertisements, we are thankful to Chickenhead.com for making these available to us. Just click on Cigarette Ads
I have a disease know as emphysema. I would like to give all teenagers a brief description of my life as a person with emphysema. The facts that I provide to you will be a true-life experience of my trials and tribulation of my disease. Young people sometimes do not realize that smoking can destroy their future. They do not understand the problems that can develop from smoking. They do not understand the affect it can have on their health.
When I was a young person, I never realized that smoking could diminish the most important factor in my life my breathing. When you can't breath you begin to realize how insignificant a cigarette can be in meeting your daily habit. I wish now I had never had a habit of smoking. I realize now breathing is a life function you can not live without, but cigarettes you can. If you had endured the pain I have suffered throughout the last ten years, you would never smoke a cigarette. I have had several collapsed lungs. I have had my back cut open, and had my lung partially removed. I have also spent months at a time in a hospital away from my family. The suffering is still not over; I now have to have my other lung partially removed. This procedure will prolong my life, for a later lung transplant.
Now, do you think I have suffered enough for my desire for a cigarette? If you smoke you could truly experience my life. I would never wish this disease on anyone. Please, think twice before you smoke. If you smoke now, please stop and remember the story of a lady who destroyed her life for a cigarette. We are sorry to report that we lost Glenda on January 15th, 2000
Jan Costilow
This is the way having emphysema makes me feel. Take a deep breath, blow out 20%, now walk around holding the rest in forever. Do you like to shop for new clothes? For me it is like running track while getting dressed, only you have to stop 3 or 4 times before you finish. It changes your whole life, nothing remains the same! Jan Costilow garyc@pcsystems.net Special Note: Jan has now received a lung transplant and is doing very well!
Pamela Costilow
My name is Pamela Costilow and I am 16 years old. I lived with my grandparents from the time I was two until I was 16. My grandmother, Janet Costilow was diagnosed with emphysema when I was about four. I have seen first hand what this horrifying disease can do to a person. My grandmother went from a person who could do anything she wanted to do, to a person who is on oxygen 24 hours a day. She used to be able to go places everyday. Now she is often to worn out to go to the store, and it is impossible for her to go shopping with out her motorized scooter and an oxygen canula in her nose. It's hard to believe that all of this has come from this disease. Over the years, I've watched my Grammy's health get worse and worse. As she has become sicker and sicker, it's been harder and harder for her to do things that she loves to do. It's difficult to watch her go through the things that she goes through. I feel guilty as I watch her struggle for each breath she takes, while I have no trouble breathing. I admit I have NO idea what this feels like to struggle for breath, but, by what I've seen, it's a feeling that I never want to experience.
Living with a person with COPD is not an easy task either. It is very stressful, and you have to be understanding. You have to be very careful, and most importantly, you have to realize that this person CANNOT BREATHE. they can't stand the smells that normal people can. You have to watch all of the things you wear around them, to make sure that the smell doesn't smother them. You need to clean a lot to make sure that the dust doesn't bother them. It's difficult, but not as difficult as having to except that the person that you love so much is suffering so much.
I admit that I got frustrated with my Grammy a lot of times... I didn't feel that it was fair that I had to do all this extra work when my friend's didn't. I didn't think that it was fair that I couldn't wear all the sweet smelling perfumes that all my friends got to wear. But, maybe I've grown up a little bit, because I see now that it's not fair that my Grammy is suffering from this disease. It's not fair that my Grammy can't breathe, it's not fair that all of her friends are still going out having fun with their family and friends and she is not able to. All this time I was selfishly thinking of myself when I still had all of my life ahead of me.
Maybe a lot of this was because I didn't fully understand my Grammy's disease. I'd heard of emphysema, and I knew that smoking could cause it, but I didn't really know the real effects of it. I didn't know what an impact it would have on my own life. It seems like these things only happen to people you don't know, but this is happening to someone I really care about. I do not want my Grammy to have to go through this. I wouldn't want this to happen to anyone-- not even my worst enemy, and it's horrible to see that my Grammy is living with this.
Of course I've considered smoking--- I mean, really and truly, who hasn't? And yes, even after seeing what my Grammy has been going through, I still considered it. I mean, I thought-- well, what are the chances that something like this, something this horrible, would happen to me? But then I really thought about it. Maybe I should be looking at the chances that this WON'T happen to me. Maybe there is greater chances that this WILL happen to me than that it WON'T. Maybe my Grammy thought this couldn't happen to her, but it did. And look at all those people that it did happen to. What makes me think that I'm so great that it won't happen to me? I'm no better or different than any of those people it did happen to. So every time that I watch someone light up that cigarette, I think of what I've seen my Grammy go through, and how, yes, it could happen very easily to me if I join the group of smokers. I just want everyone to really think about it before they start. It's not a glamorous life that my Grammy now has to live, and I really don't think that any thing is worth having to go through what she has to go through. I know that if everyone could witness what my Grammy has to do every day-- from all the medication she has to take, to the oxygen tanks she has to lug around with her, and if they saw how she struggles to do everything she does, they would make the same decision as I've made.
I hope I have enlightened a few of you and opened your eyes. Thank you for your time.
Pamela Costilow Please email my Grammy at garyc@pcsystems.net
Gary Bain
Update 9/3/00
Since I last sent the below message, I have been approved for a Lung Transplant. I also am now on full time oxygen where I have to have tubing around my ears and placed in my nose from an oxygen tank so I can breathe in more oxygen than what is in the normal air because my lungs do not work well enough. When I go outside, I have to wear or carry a tank that has oxygen in it so I can breathe better when I walk. I also now have to sleep with what they call a CPAP. It is like a hat that goes over your head and then hoses blow air into my nose so I can breathe better while I sleep. This is not me, but it looks like this;
My name is Gary Bain, I am 58 and a grandfather to a 12 year old boy, a 12 year old girl, an 11 year old girl, 2- 7 year old girls, a 6 year old girl, a 5 year old girl, a 4 year old boy, and a brand new 4 week old little boy. They all call me Paw Paw, except for the little guy and he just grins.
I started smoking when I was about 11 or 12 years old. I kept right on smoking and smoking until it got where I was having a hard time breathing. I went to the doctor and he told me that I had to quit smoking because I had Emphysema. Emphysema is mostly caused by smoking after a long time and you don't know you have it until it is too late. I could still breathe pretty good but couldn't walk as far as I used to but kept on smoking anyway because I did not believe the doctor. I still didn't quit until my 58th birthday which was just last February 28th. I can breathe better , as a matter of fact, if you will follow the instructions I have typed out below, you can tell how I can breathe now.
Sit down somewhere and relax a little and when you feel comfortable, take your right or left hand and with your thumb and forefinger, hold your nose shut. While holding your nose shut, cover your mouth tightly with the rest of your hand so you can just barely breathe through your fingers. Now, walk for about 40 steps and turn around and come back while still breathing through your hand.
Now, do you see how hard it is to breathe? Especially when you try to walk around? That is what Emphysema is and that is what smoking can do to you. Not for awhile, but when you are older and it is too late to do anything about it. Please don't even think about smoking.
If you have questions, you can email me at 1efforts@emphysema.net