If You’re a Smoker, Quit While You Can!
We got to the hospital emergency room where a physician examined me. He informed me that I was on the verge of a stroke. . that all the arteries inside my brain had become constricted and that unless I quit smoking that day, (not tomorrow or next week-he was very clear about that) I would go into a full-blown stroke!
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I was a very heavy smoker. Three packs a day. I wish I could count all the times that loved ones attempted to confront me to get me to quit. Did I listen? Heck, no! As a matter of fact, I was johnny-on-the-spot with informing them that I loved everything about smoking cigarettes and that I intended to continue my habit for the rest of my life!
There was only one incident that began to penetrate my thick wall of denial. It was when my ex-brother-in-law (who’d also been a heavy smoker) brought out a white handkerchief and challenged me to exhale some cigarette smoke into it. Even I had to admit that the large brown spot left behind on the handkerchief when I exhaled into it, was a bit shocking. Did this get me to quit? Nope. I was a die-hard . . . and die, I nearly did!
One afternoon during 1984 I was sitting on the sofa with the worst pain inside my head that I have ever experienced. My ex-husband took one look at me and said, “You look like you’ve aged ten years! I’m taking you to the emergency room!”
What did the pain feel like? The best way that I could describe it was that it felt exactly as if my brain had shrunk to a very small size and was suspended from the inside of my skull by several pieces of elastic attached to all sides of my brain and to the inside of my skull. Everytime I moved my head a fraction of an inch in any direction, it felt as though my brain slammed into the inside of my skull. I clearly recall saying to my ex-husband at the time, “I’d go through labor fifty times rather than experience this pain!”
We got to the hospital emergency room where a physician examined me. He informed me that I was on the verge of a stroke . . that all the arteries inside my brain had become constricted and that unless I quit smoking that day, (not tomorrow or next week-he was very clear about that) I would go into a full-blown stroke!
Did that scare me into quitting? Yep!! There’d recently been an actress who’d suffered a stroke that left her paralyzed on one side of her body. She’d had to learn how to speak, walk and write all over again. I remember thinking, “Oh dear God, I sure don’t want to end up like she did!”
How did I quit? Rather painfully. It’s called, “cold turkey.” I sat at our kitchen table for three days feeling as if I was losing my mind because my head kept telling my right hand to reach for a cigarette and light-up! I utilized the support of a dear friend who’d quit a year before, and thankfully, Bill was there to keep reminding me that I wasn’t going crazy.
A couple of days later, Bill recommended a hypnotist who he’d visited and who he claimed had helped him quit. I, too, visited the hypnotist. I honestly don’t know how much the hypnotist helped me. What I do know, is that I’ve not picked-up a cigarette since August 24, 1984. I know as sure as I’m sitting here that if I smoked even one, I’d be right back where I left off, and hey! I might be sixty, but I’m too young to die!!!
Copyright 2009 by JC Eberhart
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