My best friend’s husband had a TIA Wednesday night (a mini-stroke). Three of them, actually, over about 6 hours. He’s in the hospital undergoing a lot of tests; if they can’t locate a source of the clots they will likely just send him home with blood pressure meds and orders to lose weight.
There are two reasons I’m telling you this. First, he quit smoking about 3 years ago. I can’t help but wonder, if he was still a smoker, would this have been a full-blown stroke? No way to know. (He’s 42 years old, smoked for about 20 years.) It was a major wake-up call for him about his diet and weight, and I can only hope hope hope it’s a similar wake-up call for my best friend, who still smokes.
Second, I was at their house yesterday helping out with the younger kids while the adults were at the hospital. When the two older kids, both in their early 20s, came over, I learned that they both “vape.” Not the ones designed to look like cigarettes, these were goofy things that looked like small hookahs. They carried them around in their shirt pockets, and could change the cartridge at the bottom with different flavors (banana nut bread, for example). Neither of them has ever smoked cigarettes.
They kept talking about the different scents and flavors they’ve tried, even kept asking me to smell different ones and seemed hurt when I walked out of the room. I was upset and still can’t really articulate why. I guess I’m worried that they’ll start smoking actual cigarettes as a result of this, but why do I think that? It’s not tobacco, and it’s not nicotine, so why do I think they would make the leap to cigs?
I guess pulling anything into your lungs could be problematic down the road. You don’t know the long-term effect of those scented molecules and whatever contaminants might be in there, too.
But again -- it’s not tobacco, and it’s not nicotine. These aren’t smokers deluded about quitting. Is this just a generational thing? Am I a fuddy-duddy who needs to realize that the “kids” these days have one more recreational tool at their disposal? Am I viewing this the same way my grandparents viewed skateboards and fast food?
I just don’t know how to feel about it.
