This is a sad thread. My mom was given 6 months when they FINALLY diagnosed the anal lesion that she had as 3rd stage cancer. It was diagnosed because the lesion contained LUNG cells... which means the primary site was in her lungs --- All due to smoking from the time she was a teenager.
She was active and a beautiful woman who had been a professional ballerina and actress in her youth , before her marriage to my Dad at age 23. It was awful to watch the disease progress to the point that she had skin cancer, lung cancer, spinal cancer, liver cancer, pelvic cancer--- you name it . She lost her hair and her eyesight to chemo. Maybe it was a blessing-- at least she didn't have to see the fist size black spots all over her body that was skin cancer. She was in terrible pain and she was not only given oral morphine, but the morpine patch, which had to be moved periodicallu to a new spot that had not been used before. It became a major problem quickly because she had so many skin lesions that they were running out of places to place the patch. BTW-- she only lasted 4 months after the diagnosis. I considered it a blessing. I wish we who have see this could explain to smokers, who all think they are immortal... Monica Spence (Catriona MacDuff in the SCA) -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Kimiko Small Sent: Friday, February 24, 2006 6:04 PM To: Historical Costume Subject: [h-cost] OT Smoking At 08:13 PM 2/23/2006, you wrote: >My father passed away after fighting emphysema for about 7 years. It was a >mercy because he was bright and alert right up until the end. He just was >slowly drowning because of 45-50 years of smoking. Every time I see someone >light up I want to beat them! It's not that the death is so bad - it's the >dying. Way too often it is long and agonizing for everyone involved! > >Wanda I agree with you Wanda. My husband wants to have a commercial of a young person lighting up, saying "it's my choice, if I die, it will only affect me." Then show that person grow older, and how as they go through life; falling in love, getting married, having kids, then young grandkids. A progression until they die relatively early in life of cancer or other smoking related illness and show the grief of those they leave behind. The idea is to show how smoking affects their whole family, not just their personal bodies. I know we all die sometime of something. But I know in my Mom's case, she was in excellent health otherwise. No history of anything, ate right, exercised, everything good she could do, except she smoked from the age of 16 till she died a couple of months past her 73rd birthday, with only a few years where she had quit. She was given smokes from an American military man sometime after the bombing in Japan. As a Japanese woman, she had a life expectancy of her 80s or higher. She left knowing she wouldn't see her the grand daughter she had waited her whole life to hold. But thankfully, she is no longer in the intense pain she had from the cancer, which had spread to her bones in her spine and beyond. Kimiko _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
