REPOST By Maureen E. Melder7 (6/8/2003) Day 300

We were wrong.  It WAS true. A nd no matter how much you might think you are prepared for something like this…  you’re not.  All of a sudden your life is turned upside down as you start dealing with what it means to have no more choices, or at least choices that are much more black and white… much LESS desirable.

When my dad first came to grips with the reality of what was happening he wanted to spend, at least, a part of last summer at his beloved cottage…  out on the lake doing a little fishing perhaps with my brother.  That choice was gone.  He never felt well enough to make the trip.  I know that broke his heart.  And he wanted to spend his last days at home…  with my mom.  That choice was taken out of his hands as well… his care became more than she could handle.  He hated hospitals…  it didn’t matter.

His choices became even simpler.  He just wanted a couple of days when he wasn’t fighting to hold down even water… he wanted to sleep through a night without pain... he didn’t want to have to be wheeled into Chemo in a wheelchair.  He wanted to walk in on his own.  These choices were no longer his to make. 

My dad was a very proud man.  And a very private one.  I sat in the doctor’s office the day the doctor told him that the type of chemo they were treating him with wasn’t working.  I watched the doctor’s face when he offered my dad the next alternative in treatment.  And I knew that the doctor was being generous about the 20% chance that the new treatment might offer.  And the doctor looked at me as if it were my choice and asked what I thought.  I told him this was my father’s choice and that we would stand behind whatever he wanted.  And my dad...even though he was ravaged from the disease and the treatment at that point looked at the doctor and told him that he had been a fighter his whole life... he wasn’t going to change that now… and he opted to fight for his life. 

Well, his daughter is a fighter too.  And even though I started this quit at a tremendously stressful time in my life I have never looked back... and I won’t…

I refuse to roll over and give in to this addiction any more.  It still tries to trick me... it still whispers its lies every so often… and it still wants me back.  But it AIN’T getting ME... no more!

To ANY of my fellow addicts that are reading this far?  You are holding a choice… and right now that choice is pretty damn important.  MUCH more important than whether or not you are under stress… or worried about putting on a few pounds... or wanting to look cool… or just wanting to “enjoy” the sensation that you spent most of your life thinking was pleasurable.

Do NOT wait until YOUR choice is something being told you by a doctor that is just trying to give you some faint glimmer of hope.  Stop kidding yourselves... you CAN quit smoking.  My dad figured that one out... after the choice was gone!  He knew that he could have quit, and he knew that he WOULD have quit…  

This was one of the last things he ever said to me… “YOU CAN’T GET YOUR LIFE BACK IF YOU GIVE IT AWAY!” 

Stop justifying that one puff!   There is NO good reason to inhale that poison!  NOT A ONE!