I missed my 8 year anniversary a few months back, but I notice you guys did not, and I very much appreciate that. There's been a lot going on here. Taking care of my (kind of newly) widowed mother, health problems galore among many other family members, and I found out tonight that my teenaged nephew has a hopefully not too serious brain tumor that they'll be operating on in the coming days. Mom's cough seems to be getting worse these days. I'm waiting for the shoe to drop on that one. She's been fatalistic about it for years anyway. My grandmother was in her 60s when her doc told her about her emphysema and COPD. She marched right down to a hypnotist and quit smoking within weeks. We got extra YEARS we wouldn't have gotten with her otherwise. Who knows if the hypnotist actually worked or if she was just that determined to live? All I know is, if my doctor told me something I was doing was killing me, and here's what I could do to at least slow it down, I'm not gonna shrug and then go home and throw gasoline on it. It makes no sense. When I quit 8 years ago I didn't have some magic pill. I committed to the decision that I'd made to never smoke another damn cigarette. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. And to date, the most worthwhile. I'm struggling through another worthwhile quit that I hope I'll live up to, but time will tell. But I'm committing to it. Sitting back and watching the rest of my family slowly suicide themselves is becoming next to impossible. I'm finding it hard to keep my mouth shut. Its a good thing I'm going on an obviously needed vacation in 12 days because I'm becoming very grumpy.
