Good morning friends, I see there have been more replies since I was last on. I have been quite ill so I couldn't do any more than let my daughter take care of me. I am still not at full speed yet but will get there again in a few days. Not that my full speed is speedy by any means. Now my life.
I was the kid who was fun, I took risk just for laughs. I loved to live life to its fullest extent and hung with a group of kids whom did likewise. We went everywhere together, grew up together. At about 16 years old I started with illness that the doctors couldn't figure out. I spent a lot of time in the hospital. I missed most of the last two years of high school, finished it at home to graduate. At 17 I started spitting up blood, was rushed to the hospital with horrible pain in my chest that afternoon. By then as much as they had me spit in a container there was no more blood. I spent a month of testing in the hospital and the doctor telling me that there was nothing wrong, and telling my parents that he thinks it is all because I don't want to get married. I had recently been asked, but come on, I can just say no.
Anyway a month later my leg swells, turned a blue color and the pain was off the charts both in my leg and chest. Come to find out I had clots in my lungs and leg. Lucky me, It made the medical books cause I was so young. Since then I have had clots in my leg so much that the blood flow is badly damaged. When I can actually feel my feet the burning pain and the cramps keep me from walking much. I have had a stroke which caused me glaucoma, my eyesight has gotten very bad now. I have had at least four tia's. I was finding clots on my arms even though I was on blood thinner at that point. It took the doctors years to figure out why even on thinners I would still clot up. I have multiple blood disorders that cause clots. Over the years this has caused many problems. All would scare me and I couldn't tell you now, why I didn't stop smoking. If you read my excuses, this I guess is where that part would fit in. I got the rsd next.
The day I spit blood I was already a smoker, I remember thinking "What if this is lung cancer!" I was just a kid, I remember the fear I felt and stopped smoking right that minute. But as I spent day after day in the hospital I ended up starting again. Those days my visitors could smoke in my room while visiting with me. I had quit a month, the doctor kept telling me it was emotional. He didn't believe there was blood. And when I found out it was clots, well I didn't really think about it, it wasn't lung cancer. So I was again a smoker.
If only I had known then, what I know now. I have been a smoker for 49 years. I have been ill for about the same. I have recently been told that my kidneys are failing, and of course I have coronary artery disease, nerve damage and all the smokers illnesses.
And I still smoke... until June 26. I need all the help I can get. I cried my eyes out just yesterday cause when I could finally get out of bed after two days of being violently ill... I went on the porch and lit up yet again. I'm afraid of failing on the 26th.
