Dear Friends,
Today is Day 8 for me! So far so Good. I can't believe it has been a full week, although sometimes I feel that I have been in this war for a much longer time. Thanks for all of the encouragement. I have told everyone I know who has battled the quit and is still smoking about this site and how it has made all the difference for me. I would like to share something with you, though, which is quite sad. One of my students ( a fifth grader) grandfather died over the weekend from lung cancer. A few weeks ago he told me that his grandfather had been diagnosed with it and had elected not to do chemo but have hospice come in. I knew then it was quite serious. Hospice becomes an option when cancer is in the last stages.I would ask him how his granddad was doing and he would tell me about the difficulty he had walking from the bed to the chair or to the bathroom. Well, he died on Saturday and Michael was very distraught. He wanted to talk about it and I let him.He said his grandfather had woken up, but was coughing horrendously. He walked to the kitchen and sat down. He then asked for a cigarette and started to smoke. I realized that even though he had been diagnosed with lung cancer he still had not quit smoking.I saw the pain in Michael eyes. He told me that while his grandfather was smoking he started to cough violently and then began to spit up blood. His grandmother asked him to leave the room, (good thing) and the EMT's were called, but it was too late, his grandfather had died. Michael is still so sad about this and you can see it in his eyes. He is far too young to be confronted by the reality of the death of someone you love. But, to think that this did not have to happen so soon. His grandfather was only 65 years old. And the last image Michael had of his grandfather was of him smoking a cigarette! The same stuff that killed him. The addiction is strong and deadly. but it can be stopped. We are all living proof of this! If this is the first day of your quit, you have put in motion the force that will break the cycle of addiction and ultimately your death.You have taken a stand to beat this. I am starting DAY 8 today and everyday I thank God I stopped. It is hard but I don't want to die like that in front of my children and my husband. They don't
