The Smoker's Memorial
~ Page Five ~

I just wanted to say thanks for putting up this website. Until I learned what more about the actual physical addiction on whyquit.com, I was unable to quit. I am now nine months nicotine free after a 20 years of smoking (17 to 37). One thing I had to do was make it the number one priority in my life above everything else. For example, if my job was too stressful and caused me to smoke, I guess I was going to quit my job. Fortunately, I didn't need to do that, but I figured if I didn't have my health, I had nothing. Everything else would and did fall into place once I quit. It was evident that I did love myself after all, but it took will power and KNOWLEDGE to succeed.

I lost my dad at 62. He smoked his whole life. Not only did it cut his life short, his quality of life wasn't as good either. He was a SMART and SUCESSFUL man, but he never learned the truth to empower him. More need to know the truth. More need to understand nicotine. I refer people to WhyQuit so they can.

Thanks again for saving my life.

Luke

My mom and dad both died young. They both smoked. Mom need to have a heart transplant at the age of 51. She was directed by her doctor some 6 years before her death to stop smoking. She didn't stop. She continued to smoke ... her heart was barely able to pump blood. Dad was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1996 and continued to smoke and eventually developed bone cancer at age 56 and died at 57. Smoking leads to other cancers. That's well documented.

It's 2008, would mom and dad still be here if they had not smoked? Most likely. Mom would be 58 and dad would be 60. I still miss them both so much. Sometimes I try to forget all of that pain they suffered through and not being able to help them. It was a huge loss to the family and I still feel like I have a big whole in my heart...but I don't want to die early like they did. I'm 34 years-old, I don't want to turn 35 in September and still be a smoker.

Just last night (7/28) I was having an intense craving to start smoking again, but was able to get through it. When I went to bed, I had a dream that I was looking for a sickerette. I wanted it so bad. I was standing with one in my hand (not lit) and my mom walked around the corner quickly and smiled at me. It felt so real, that she was there with me. I immediately jumped up from my sleep. I was so scared.

I think the reason for the fear was that I prayed a long time ago for my mom to be removed from my dreams (since her appearance in my dreams was very frequent and was causing a little sadness) and that the only time I wanted to see her again was when it was time for me to die. That the Lord would send her to me to ease my fears. I think I thought I was about to actually die last night when I jump up from my bed.?? If I start smoking again, most likely I will die..early, like my mom and dad. I believe her entrance into my dream last night was blessing,a reminder to NTAP (Never Take Another Puff) and live long.

RIP Karen & James McSpadden

Your daughter,

Michelle

16 days, 10 hours of Freedom : )

I lost my grandfather about two years ago to stage IV lung cancer that had spread throughout his body. Less than two years earlier he was diagnosed with lung cancer and had 3/4ths of his lung removed. They couldn't remove all his lung because he was already 75 and would have to be on a ventilator, which he didn't want. We knew the chances of missing some cancer, but he had surgery anyway. He started chemo and radiation therapy right after the surgery, which made it take longer to heal. A few times he fell down the stairs at my aunt's and if my uncle hadn't been there, no one would have been able to pick him up [my cousin passed out - it happened right in front of him].

After his first round of chemo, tests came back saying the cancer had spread. He decided not to continue chemo - he didn't want to die sick, weak, and in pain. So we watched him deteriorate, age even more, walk slower, eventually he couldn't even get to the bathroom and we had to bring in a portable toilet. he had two nurses come every day, one during daylight, one at night - to administer his pain medication. He died in his sleep around my cousin's 14th birthday, in June. He was cremated, and we held a memorial service at my aunt's house.

What makes this story more tragic [at least to me] is that despite my resent loss, my best friend [who is only 14] continues to smoke daily, and often. I'm posting on this site not just for my grandfather, but so maybe she'll see not just his story, but others. stories of successful quitting don't work on her - she needs to feel the pain the rest of us have felt in losing someone to smoking.

Rita Forrest

My grandfather, Chet Parkman died after many, many years of smoking. When I was little, I would visit him at his home. He would be sitting in the kitchen smoking a cigarette and then we would move into the living room with him while he hooked up his oxygen tank so he could breathe. My family watched him slowly deteriorate and suffer daily.

I saw all of this before I started smoking. I have now smoked for 28 years.

Lisa

44 hours and 11 minutes smokefree

Dear WhyQuit.com

4 years 7 months and 5 days ago I chose to stop smoking. (I still have my "quit counter" running on my computer which is now just a reminder!)

I gave up at age 39 after watching my elderly mother successfully quit and deciding some years later that I could finally do it too. At 70, she had walked out of the doctor's office, thrown her cigarette pack in the rubbish bin and never smoked again.

She didn't find it easy for the first week or so but had made up her mind and never went back on that choice. This was after more than 50 years of smoking. That I have also managed the task is a tribute to her, my own resolve and this web site.

We lost mum last year. If she had not stopped smoking when she did, the years between would have been far, far fewer. In one year, our family fiction of having "good genes" and thus no ill effects from smoking, ended suddenly.

We lost our mum young. In my family, non smokers die in their 90's . In 2006 - a year before my mother's death from emphysema - she and dad had their 50th wedding anniversary. Attending that party was mum's 93 year old aunt and 91 year old uncle. My mum died at 77 soon after her uncle. Mum's aunt is still with us at 95.

Mum died on the 9th April 2007 with her husband and children there until the end. (My brother - who we never thought would quit - gave up the next day and a year later has not had a cigarette). Seven months after mum's death we were again seeing a parent die from smoking. Dad developed lung cancer which spread rapidly through his body. He was lost without his wife and never really recovered from watching her die. Despite this and his own illness, he was insistent about wanting to smoke (his "gaspers") until only weeks before his death when he was too ill to move from his bed.

I look at the cigarettes in the shops and wonder how many more mothers and fathers the makers of these drugs will kill in the coming years. However, the sad truth is that while they sell the stuff, we choose every day whether to buy it or see it for what it is. Smoking is not a treat, is not a reward and brings no true comfort to you.

Everyone dies. This is a truth I can understand and accept with much more peace now. However we should not die before it is our true time. My mum and dad never saw their grandson finish school, become an adult nor see him now go into the world on his adventures.

Please don't smoke anymore.

TM Smith
Perth Western Australia

My grandmother, Janet Sumner, died of cancer in her 50's. It was 1990 and I was 4 years old. I am 21 today and I have not forgotten her. She smoked for many years and it caught up to her. It is one of the saddest to remember. It must have been close to her death and I was visiting her in the hospital she had orange slices and I wanted one! She said to me you can have one but you must come up here and give your memaw a kiss.

I wouldn't do it...not because I didn't love her but because I was too afraid of all of the medical equipment around her. I remember feeling awful even at that age that I didn't hug her. I wish that I had.

Unfortunately, later in life I also started smoking but I did not forget her. Recently I quit smoking. It has been 10 days. I will never touch another one of those life takers. I pray that I quit soon enough. Even though she is no longer here with me, she gave me one of the greatest gifts. She helped save my life. I couldn't continue to smoke knowing what happened to her. It finally got to me. I love her dearly and hope that she knows that in heaven :)

Katherine Louise Parker

It's been since Jan. 1st, 2007 since I smoked my last cigarette. I quit cold turkey, the best way if you ask me. I had some help from this website and through its information and all, that helped the most.

On Friday, Nov. 16th, 2007 we buried my grandpa. He passed away after a long hard fight with emphysema. He was 81 years old and smoked for over 65 years of life. He once told us that when he started he was around 11-12 and back then smoking was glorified as the new thing to do. It was embedded in is mind, his entire life, and he was never able to break free for more then a few days before starting back at his 2 packs-a-day.

Watching grandpa die a slow painful death for more than 2 years has put a new vision of smoking in my mind, and the vision is not pretty. Now when I think I want a cigarette all I have to do is think about my grandpa and what he went through the last 2 years of his life. By comparison, I have a great-uncle that is now 84 years old and for as long as I can remember never smoked a day in his life, is strong as an ox and healthy as a horse - big difference!!

Best Regards,

Eric

I am 35 years old, I have smoked since I was fourteen and I am NOW on quit day number 9 and never taking another puff!! Our family's silent killer is smoking related cancers. My aunt passed away this spring after she was diagnosed with a tumor in her brain that developed as a result of lung cancer. She didn't even know she had lung cancer when she was complaining of headaches. There was no bronchitis or nothing. She was in her early 50's and smoked her whole life.

My uncle passed over a year ago with liver, cancer complications. He was in his early 60's and was a lifetime smoker and a recovered alcoholic. My step brother was diagnosed with COPD from smoking at the age of 27, and although slowly killing him he continues to smoke. My paternal grandfather died with a quarter of a lung. He was in his 70's and he smoked a pipe like frosty the snowman. My paternal grandmother followed a year later. Although she didn't smoke, she lived in a house that was always filled with smoke. She was in her early 70's and died from cancer that was in her bones. They don't know where it originated.

Prior to that, my other grandma moved in with us while she was being treated with lung cancer. I was 14 years old. It was a horrible ordeal to go through. She passed away in her fifty's and smoked up until her death day. Prior to that my paternal aunt passed away from secondary bone cancer. They have no idea where it originated. She was a lifetime smoker and died at age 34. A year prior to that my beloved father was killed in a car accident with a drunk driver. It was my tenth birthday. He was a smoker and a drinker. Through all this I smoked thinking I was immortal because I was young.

This year I have quit and restarted 4 times. This is my last time! I was diagnosed with cervical cancer over a year ago. The prime link for cervical cancer is SMOKING! It was my 34th birthday. You'd think my past would have dummied me up a long time ago, but the addiction was too powerful. I was lucky it didn't travel too far into my lymphnodes. I had a radical hysterectomy and had my surrounding nodes removed. I spent a week in the hospital after my third and final surgery, while my 5 and 16 year old daughters were frantic and scared. I will NEVER put my family through this again.

I have a 4% chance of it returning. I think I was lucky. I love WhyQuit. It has helped me like you wouldn't believe. I can not join as a member because I am taking Zyban full course, but the reading materials are like none I've read before. THANK YOU! Its making me determined and strong! I hope my story can help other young people out there that are addicted like I was but are poisoned to believe that a smoking related nightmare cannot happen to them! It can and eventually will! Believe it!

Rachele

My Aunt Died February 2006 from lung cancer. She had smoked almost her entire life as did my mother (my Mother died in a car accident when I was 21). My Aunt had no insurance, no money and ended up having to leave her home and move into a nursing facility. Each night my other aunts would take turns going to visit her. She did not want anyone else to see her! She suffered a lot of pain, and had a really hard time breathing. She was on oxygen, and that did not help much. She was given 6 to 8 months to live. She made it 6. Hospice had to come in, in the end at my Aunt's nursing home(paid for by her sister). She knew smoking did it to her and still wanted to smoke! The addiction is just so terrible.

I also was a smoker, on and off for the last 20 years. I would quit, only to start again at the slightest excuse. Until my Aunt died, I never saw anyone who had died before from smoking, so I was thinking "Hey that wont happen to me." But that's the addiction talking! I finally quit for good in March 2007. I had one relapse and quit immediately again. It is a struggle but one that I will win! I love this site, Whyquit.com! It is helping me so much. I hope one person will read these stories as I have, and know in their hearts that it is not a matter of "IF" smoking will kill you, it's only a matter of "WHEN". You can't smoke and live, you just can't. It's one or the other. Do you want to die? No, me either. Not that way, being a burden to family, and all because I chose to smoke! No way! I choose to live. Won't you do the same?

Cindy