I am going to let off a little steam and a lot of smoke about smoking.
I have always hated smoking. I can remember at an early age putting my fingers in an ashtray and then being upset by the terrible smell sticking to my fingers. I guess I was a born non-smoker. In my family my father didn't smoke, and one of my brothers didn't smoke, but all the rest, i.e. my mother, two sisters and one brother and assorted brothers and sisters-in-law and even my wife have blown smoke over me for the whole of my life. I hated the smell and it it makes me sneeze, but now I have a bigger reason to hate smoking - what it does to its victims, and one victim in particular, my mother.
We all know smoking causes cancer, and not surprisingly this worries smokers. It worries my mother so much that she needs a cigarette to calm herself down whenever she thinks about it - but people tend to forget about the other things this evil weed does, and my mother, an nicotine addict for over 60 years is a (just) living example.
OK, my mother is 86 years old, so she's had a "good innings" and she smokes about 40 to 60 cigarettes a day - "a game old bird" one would say. You could say she is the proof that smoking doesn't kill but...
My mother has emphysema and has had it for about 8 years. Her lungs have become leathery and don’t absorb oxygen as they should. She gets breathless walking a few paces and has been unable for the last 6 years to manage the 250 metre walk to the local shops because there is a slight incline on the way. She always puffs and pants and had difficulty catching her breath. When she stands next to me as I work in her garden or do her paperwork she puffs as if she had just run to catch a bus. She isn’t receiving any treatment for emphysema – the NHS has understandably decided not to offer treatment to smokers as it is a waste of money. She has been told that smoking has done this to her.
My mother has a terrible cough. She will cough “fit to bust” and I often wonder when talking to her on the phone if I am listening to her coughing her last. When I ask her what she does to relieve the cough she tells me that a cigarette helps.
My mother has Age Related Macular Degeneration – the blood vessels in her retina have distorted and ruptured leaving a black hole wherever she looks. She can no longer read or even see the birds or flowers in her garden and is now officially blind having had near perfect eyesight until about 5 years ago. As the name suggests Age Related Macular Degeneration is something that happens to old people, BUT it is made worse by smoking and is even believed to be directly caused by smoking in some cases. She has been told that smoking has done this to her.
My mother has had ulcers on her legs for the last 4 years. They started because of a skin tumour (not smoking related) but when the tumour was removed the wound took an age to heal – and in the mean time strange dark patches started forming on her shins. As soon the ulcer on one leg healed another formed on the other leg and she has had that one for at least 2 years. The skin on her legs became hard and leathery and the dark patches spread. She has been told that smoking has done this to her.
My mother noticed her toes were getting darker and the skin in her calves courser and leathery and she got pains in her feet and calves. Eventually, earlier this year she went to the doctor who eventually took the whole thing seriously and referred her to a specialist.
She has seen the specialist consultant once and he said things like Peripheral Arterial Disease (PAD) and Chronic Venous Insufficiency (CVI). She has been told that smoking has done this to her.
She has been for a Doppler scan on her legs to check the blood flow. She is due to go back for her results in the middle of next month (June 2007).
I went to see my mother last weekend... I knew she had been unwell. I thought she had had a cold, but when I saw her I was shocked. She looked as if she had stood in a bath full of boiling water. Both legs were scarlet and swollen. Her feet were like balloons and her toes were black. The swelling went up her legs to her thighs and her knees looked like a prop forward’s. I wanted to take her to casualty there and then, but she refused.
With the help of my sister and one of my nieces’ we got the doctor to come and see her on Monday. He started saying things like “Critical Limb Ischemia” and gangrene. She has been told that smoking has done this to her.
Since then my mother has seen another doctor who has made similar diagnosis and thrown in thrombosis for good measure.
The ‘cure’ for “Critical Limb Ischemia”? Well there are two ways of curing it
- Give up smoking and get oxygen and perhaps a arterial bypass operation, or alternatively, if she doesn't give up
- Amputation – both legs.
She has been told that smoking has done this to her.
My mother has been prescribed some nicotine patches to help her give up and she got them yesterday afternoon. I phoned her last night to ask her if she had started using them. “No, I will start tomorrow morning” was the reply.
If you had been told the only way you were going to save your legs was to slap on a patch, would you wait until the next morning?
If you want to find out more about the revolting things smoking has done to my mother have a look at these links. Warning – if you smoke you may find this mildly worrying, if you have been bothered to read this far – if you don’t smoke you probably will feel very ill!
Emphysema
www.mayoclinic.com/health/emphysema/SECTION=2
www.mayoclinic.com/health/emphysema/SECTION=3
www.mayoclinic.com/health/emphysema/SECTION=4
www.mayoclinic.com/health/emphysema/SECTION=8
Age Related Macular Degeneration
www.stlukeseye.com/Conditions/MacularDegeneration
PAD - Peripheral Arterial Disease
CVI - Chronic Venous Insufficiency
www.vascularweb.org/Chronic_Venous_Insufficiency.html
www.woundcarecenter.net/193cases.pdf (warning big file)
www.vascularweb.org/Leg_Artery_Disease
Smoking kills
We all know that – but can do it so slowly and terribly.
What is almost worse is the masochistic response nicotine provokes: when faced with these facts the addict's reaction is not to stop and prevent these horrible ways of dieing (or a living death) but to indulge in more of this terrible drug.
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