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
Marlene
Hi, my name is Marlene.
I am 49 and have 17-year old twin daughters. I started smoking when I was 18 years old. And, right away, was a 2 to 3 pack-a-day smoker. In the last 31 years, I have quit smoking only once, and that was when I had my wisdom teeth chipped out, one week at a time. So, for 4 weeks I could not smoke. But, because a person that I was near to smoked, I started up again.
Some of you may say, "I'm young, I can smoke for a few years, and then quit." But, you can't, really. If your parents smoked, and a lot of parents have smoked around their children, then you have been breathing second-hand smoke for 12 or 15 years already. And, you may be showing early signs -- do you start coughing when you run, roller blade, play basketball, baseball, tennis, or do some other sport? Do you have a lot of phlegm that you cough up? Do you get colds or the flu often? How about allergies -- do you sniffle, sneeze, do your eyes get goopy or red? If you do, then you are probably showing early signs of Emphysema already.
Is smoking addictive? You just bet it is. I have tried to stop smoking so many times that I can't count. I have tried using the nicotine gum, the patch, the aerosol nasal spray, hypnosis, stop smoking classes, support groups, and everything under the sun. Stopping smoking is worse than dieting, stopping the use of alcohol or biting you nails, and, from what I've read, worse than stopping a drug addiction. But, nicotine is a drug. The MOST addictive drug of all.
When you first stop smoking, all you can think about is -- I want a cigarette..... over, and over, and over, and over ..... You put your arms around yourself, and hug yourself tight, tears roll down your face, your hands tremble, you can't breath (ha, you can't breath anyway when you have Emphysema or chronic bronchitis--but it gets worse), you start shaking. And you bite
your tongue -- to keep from begging someone to buy you just one more pack, or get you just one more cigarette.
And, after many, many, tries, and you finally succeed, you can never just have one cigarette!!! That just one cigarette will start the vicious cycle all over again.
So, the best course of action, is to "JUST SAY NO!" when friends hold out a cigarette for you to try. In fact, that first cigarette makes you feel pretty sick -- nauseous, light headed. But, if you get past that feeling, then you are hooked.! And, it's been proven that you're hooked almost for life.
Now, there is just one more thing I want to tell you. And that's what my life is like now. I have had to quit work, because I can't breath. And because I can't breath I am taking 33 pills and 5 inhalers a day. While these medicines help me, they don't cure me. THERE IS NO CURE FOR EMPHYSEMA!!! And another side-effect of these medicines and of not having enough air to breath is that my memory is gone. When my teen-age girls tell me something, I don't remember it the next day. Also, I cannot go to their school performances, award ceremonies, nor can I go clothes shopping with them, nor shopping with them for groceries. Instead of me helping them, they have to help me -- get me something to drink, water, snacks. They have to do the cleaning, dish and clothes washing, help with the cooking. OK, I can hear you. You have chores, too. But, you are not the primary person -- you are helping your parent.
I hope this has helped to make you more aware. Having Emphysema is NO picnic. Thanks, for reading/listening.
hmsboston@aol.com
Hey, quit with the high school “this could happen to you” crap. You are posting to computer literate adults. Did you ever hear of “know your audience”? If you want to sell you can’t insult your targets intelligence. I know, I know, it makes YOU feel good, you really FEEL you have a live one, “this will make’m sit-up, bla, bla….”. Well, it doesn’t.
It’s not that I agree with you, I don’t. It’s just that you are so bad, it is depressing, pathetic, weak and stale.
Lastly, emphysema isn’t a disease, it is a condition and depending on how accurate you want to measure, every adult after the mid-twenties has it. Think of it as skin wrinkles of the lungs.