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The "Old Road Toad" aka Pops...

Pops
Member
5 25 317

Good morning EXers.....

It's been a long time since I posted a blog...I've been out living life on life's terms.....

Smokefree has given me a vast amount of new freedom and physical ability that I simply did not have time to enjoy while I was a slave to the demonic powers of nicotine addiction....

That being said, I now sleep better, in that I am no longer waking up every two hours to either cough up golf ball sized clumps of phlem, or yield to the reflex of reaching over to the pack of death that was perched so close to my head on the night stand....only to light up another coffin nail and have it fall from my sleepy fingers and burn holes into either my carpet, or sheets....now that I remember that, geez did I ever burn up alot of perfectly good sets of linens when I was still smoking.....

So, as time has been passing by, and I am now mending quite well as a result of the absence of nicotine.....some other factors are starting to come into view with my age (68 come this April..) and reckless lifestyle that I used to live.  Yesterday, I went to see the cardiologist for a followup visit after my heart surgery that I had done on Aug 28th of last year.  I actually thought that the Drs would tell me how great I was doing and that I was a walking miracle...lol.  Well, all was looking good, in that I had lost weight...15 lbs!, and my blood pressure was 124/70!  All the doctors said, "we should all be so blessed to have blood pressure as good as that...However, my heart rate was 97 beats per minute, and they rushed me to get an ECG right away.  Turns out, that I am in Atrial Flutter...not Atrial Fibrillation....It was explained to me that Flutter is much more desirable and easier to treat than the latter.  Flutter comes from a small irregularity inside one of my upper atrial valves, and can be rectified via a camera led chemical burning tool through my aorta (from my groin) to the upper chambers of my heart and then they will burn down the irregularity, thus eliminating the flutter.  This procedure has a 95% success rate of the flutter never returning after it is performed, conversely, only 5% of the cases ever experience an occurrence of the condition returning.  This is all because now that I have been diagnosed as Flutter patient, I am in a high risk of a clot forming inside of my heart and dislodging to the blood stream and landing in my brain, causing a stroke....(oh how fun does that sound???...)  

I am simply grateful that God has given me access to Doctors that are skilled and equipped properly to handle these sort of issues with a great deal of success in my lifetime.  Our parents were basically put out to pasture to just fade away and die in their lifetimes.  We, are much more fortunate having the wonders of modern medicine that is available today.

Can you possibly imagine how little my chance of recovery would have been had I still been smoking and taking in that blood thickening poison of nicotine?  I am so glad to be smokefree, and hope that others might read this blog, as well as some of my other blogs and see just how fortunate I really am, and if I can do this....then what on earth could you possibly be thinking that would justify you into making a statement like, "well, that's good for you, but I'm different...I just can't quit?"  Bull!  Anybody can quit, but only after you have made up your mind that you quit, and then remember...you just don't smoke anymore...."PERIOD"!!!

Have a wonderful smokefree day today...

Pops w/154 DOF!

25 Comments
About the Author
Hi, and thanks for stopping by to read my page....My name is Ken Bishop...aka, Pops. I am a stubborn older addict of nicotine....I have quit on numerous occasions in the past, and have experienced great rewards as a direct result of not ingesting deadly toxins into my bloodstream. One of the curses of having a strong constitution that seems to be able to withstand much more than others can...is this...my body would still be able to move around, and get things accomplished even after I was poisoned by the harmful effects of nicotine addiction. Eventually, the harm became so significant, that not even I, with all of my denial...could avoid the truth that to continue to smoke, would most assuredly be the death of me, and in short order as well. On Sept 1st, of 2018...I found myself in a rehab facility for alcohol abuse, and came very near death. I quit messing around, and had a deep and moving spiritual encounter, and have remained sober without one single urge to pick up a drink since. That was after consuming copious amounts of booze for many years in the past. After a short while.. I asked for spiritual help from my creator to make it possible for me to get the same amount of conviction towards finally being able to successfully put down nicotine once and for all...As of....(September 14th, 2019)...I have 17 days of living smokefree! Woo Hoo!!! Friends and family are all very proud and happy for me. They have asked me what I thought was the turning point, after having experienced so many failed attempts before. I simply reply, "I took the God Shot". xoxoxo Pops update: in Dec of 19 when the stock market started going nuts...I used that as an excuse to start smoking again. I see-sawed back and forth for severa months, and when the COVID crisis hit, I simply lost all desire to be smokefree...I was going to smoke & that was final. Well, as always...the pains of excessive injestion of nicotine into my blood stream...(one puff is all it takes) started affecting my everyday life again...I knew I had to quit placating my inner child and grow up and accept a life without nicotine. The normal person would read this and say well duh...finally he's getting it. But the normally addicted nicotine addict would understand...weird huh? So now I'm back with a new quit date of July 8th, 2020 & am hoping that I can accept that as a perfect quit date that does not need to be changed. Thanks for reading and good luck to you in your quit journey. Pops w 4 DOF!