I'm 55, I'm overweight, I smoked a pack a day for about 40 years.
I told myself "Of course you are out of breath, you're overweight and you smoke."
And I kept on telling myself that as my mobility decreased and my breathlessness increased.
And I kept on telling myself until the day my husband came home with a cough and cold and I caught it. I caught the bug, the virus, the chest infection that landed me in the ER with a blood oxygen level of 81%. After six nights of hospitalization, ($30,276.00) antibiotics, nebulizer treatments and tied to an oxygen tank I was discharged and sent home with the general diagnosis of COPD.
Okay, COPD. What exactly does that mean? Can I recover? No, there is no cure for COPD, only management. You have to manage it.
I refuse to accept that answer. I refuse to accept that I am going to be forever tied to any oxygen tank.
I had "tried" to quit smoking before but I didn't have to. I didn't need to. I didn't want to. But I "tried" to quit only because I knew I should.
January 3, 2018 I was hospitalized. January 9th, on my 55th birthday I was discharged. My birthday gift to myself was to never smoke another cigarette for as long as I live. I got inside my head and asked my brain who is running this show? Do I control you or do you control me? My brain wants to control me. It wants to tell me what I want, it wants to tell me what I need, it wants to tell me what I should do but I woke up on January 9th. I woke up to the fact that this isn't happening to someone else, this is happening to me and if I don't do something about it, I will lose.
But I refuse to lose.
So I began to tell my brain, no, you do not control me, I control you. No, you will not dictate to me what I can or cannot do. I will tell you what I need. I will tell you what I want. I need to be proud of me. I need to love me. I want love me. I do love me.
I deserve to be free. I'm worth it. Free from the chains smoking puts on me. I want to walk and not be out of breath. I want to swim. I want to breath.
