To Smoke or not to smoke…That is the question?
For all intent purposes we will use my father for this blog. He died from lung cancer in 1993. First question that many would be to ask, “Was he a smoker?” No. He was not. Did he ever smoke? Yes he did. He quit smoking 5 years before getting lung cancer. See that is what his problem was. Wrong that is not how he got his cancer. My father had contracted Squamous Cell Carcinoma. According to MD Anderson (University of Texas Cancer Center Fact sheet 2012) “Lung Metastases; Cancer found in the lungs is sometimes another type of cancer that started somewhere else in the body and spread, or metastasized to the lungs. These tumors are called lung metastases, and they are not the same as lung cancer. They usually are the primary, or original, type of cancer.” (http://www.mdanderson.org/patient-and-cancer-information/index.html?cmpid=google_branded_ppc&gclid=CKGx9Kblqa4CFSleTAod4DWBSw)
You see my father had this huge mole on his chest that was always flesh color. One day I noticed it as turning black when he was outside working. He and I talked about going and getting it checked. He never did. During the early 50s just before many of our troops went to Korea, my father was involved in a cleanup in Washington State of “unknown test substances.” In about 1986, my father also sold and changed a tire of two, to some Cuban dump truck drivers who were handling an unknown ecological clean up of some type of toxic materials just west of Sealy, Texas. The reason I remember this is because they were getting a tremendously large order of tires for this one specific job. In 1991, my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer—unknown by the VA Hospital in Jackson, Mississippi.
Years later after going over all of Dad’s records, before and after his death, I see that Dad died from a cancerous mole that spread into the lung then into the spine and brain. Meanwhile, my father’s cousin died (the age of 90) who smoked and drank her whole life. She died of “old age.” Bottom line no matter what, when God takes you, you are gone.
The point I am trying to make sounds funny to a certain extent. “E-Cigarettes” the fashion of 2012! I started to investigate the E-Cigarette. I looked at the websites below to get some information on them. How many years has studies been done?
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/forum/ http://www.thesmartstyleliving.com/ereviewb.asp?source=bing http://www.electroniccigarettereviewsite.net/
Is this the revolutionary “chic” method of smoking in the second decade of the new millennium? Back in the 1960s, cigarette smoking was really marketed with some of the same information I had read on the websites mentioned above: words like “totally safe” “doesn’t seem to cause health issues” “acceptable indoors” (http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/tobacco-ads-1960s). But wait, I have to ask how many independent studies have been done to see if these claims are true? Not near enough and yet as always, we good “ole’ American citizens” jump on the band wagon looking for a solution to something again.
Use your brain. Lung Cancer can be caused also from living in an area prone to omit toxic chemicals in the air. We have EPA to take care of that. HAHAHAHA! According to the American Lung Association (http://www.lung.org/healthy-air/home/healthy-air-at-home/prevent-problems.html) cigarette smoking is not the number one cause of lung cancer in America today. It is RADON! Radon is a common radioactive gas found in nearly all soils.
About 6 years ago, I had some x-rays done for a severe upper respiratory problem. (No doubt caused from cigarette smoke.) Out of curiosity, I checked the box “NO” where asked do I smoke. Three days later the doctor called me and mailed me an x-ray report. Lungs clear. In the doctor’s notation, “Glad to see you stopped smoking! See I told you your lungs would clear up fine.” I stopped smoking about 2 hours before the x-rays. DAH! According to medical research, this is “likely” to cause that.
CURE:
Do not go hog wild and over use anything. Stop doing everything that is not natural. No more living in houses, no more smoking anything manufactured. Only eat organically grown foods – laced with horse pooh because cow and chicken pooh has too much wrong with it. I understand bat pooh is the better of all of it. But if you have to squat in the woods or behind a bush somewhere, make sure when you wipe it is not a leaf from poison ivy. (That hurts in the long run—painful too!)
But whether or not you smoke, know the dangers. When a doctor tells you the benefits outweigh the dangers…I am sure many patients who have ended up wanting to kill themselves while taking Chantix didn’t read the side effects label. But be informed regardless that not all side effects are reported and you should consult your physician. He or she doesn’t know either. Call the pharmacist, who doesn’t know what side effects were not reported. Why don’t they know? Simple, it wasn’t reported.
