Here’s a story I never thought I’d write. I smoked for over 30 years, with about 3 years break for being pregnant and breastfeeding. After I found out it was bad for you (lol) I continued smoking because I was truly addicted. But in the last 6 or so years that I smoked, I did try to quit several times because even I was having problems with it.
Once I managed to give up for around 4 months, but usually it was only for 2 or 3 weeks. At some point, some major stress would rear its head and I would be back on those babies. But finally, around about a year ago, the problems started to get much worse. I got out of breath climbing the stairs and my blood pressure increased to borderline high. It wasn’t so much a case of me having the choice about quitting smoking any more, it was more like my body was telling me – either you quit or I do.
So I quit. And within a fairly short time, I felt really good. Currently, my blood pressure is back to being so low that I sometimes think about drinking a Coke in the mornings to increase it. The only problem is that I seem to have become really allergic to other peoples’ smoking. And I mean really allergic.
If I come out of a building and someone is smoking outside, I have to cover my mouth to walk past. I can choke from smoke at ten meters. It’s become almost impossible to go to outdoor festivals and the like as they are full of people smoking. If someone sits down at the same table as me in a street café and starts smoking, either I have to move or ask them to.
The worst part of this is that I have good friends who still smoke. Last New Years’, they kindly invited me to a party at their house. I was thrilled as I had nothing else planned. The party, held in their large party basement, consisted of 8 adults and about 5 children, a raclette for dinner, games of billiards and darts, and a disco for the more energetic among us. I was told “We’ve decided to make the basement a smoke-free zone, because of the kids”. Delightful and incredible news!
Of course, after we had eaten the raclette and established that it was snowing outside at minus temperatures, nobody bothered about the smoke-free zone any more. After the raclette, 6 of the 8 adults lit up and the disco and games began. The “window” was indeed open all evening, but considering that the basement is subterranean and this “window” opens up to a small grill in the ground at ground level, around 95% of the smoke remained in the basement while the rest might have wafted slowly upwards and outwards.
Myself, I spent the entire evening down the far end of the basement, getting jiggy with it and boogying the night away. While I love dancing, it was mostly a self-protection maneuver to stay far away from the poison. Around 120 cigarettes were smoked in the basement that evening. And the next day I coughed fit to bust a gut. I coughed so much I thought I had contracted bronchitis from standing in the snow watching the fireworks at midnight, and vowed to go to the doctor’s the next day. However, the next day, the cough had disappeared and it was only then I realized that I was fine and it had been a reaction to the smoke.
This reaction, however, was absolutely nothing to what I experienced a few months later, and here’s a story to make your hair stand on end – which was about the only reaction I didn’t have! A few months later, the same friends called me up one Saturday afternoon and asked me round for the evening. We were going to watch a film and chill. I must admit, I was greatly in two minds, as I do enjoy the company of these friends, but I thought – hm, OK, we will be in the basement again and it will mean that I will be coughing all day tomorrow. Do I want that? No, but I guess sometimes you have to take the good with the bad.
So off I went, fully cognizant and expectant of possibly being laid up in bed all day Sunday. I did go as late as possible, so that I wouldn’t need to spend that much time there – honestly, I know it sounds like more trouble than it is worth when I write it down! Anyway, I got there about 8.45 in the evening and sure enough we were in the basement with my two friends smoking away and the film running.
We passed a very pleasant evening, with me trying to stay as far away as possible from the smoking action (which once again took place directly next to the open “window”), except that after about half an hour I was already coughing.
I stayed precisely three and a half hours. I enjoyed it very much and I love spending time with these friends, but it was impossible to stay any longer. And that’s when the fun really started.
As soon as I had climbed up the many steps to my apartment, a kind of small stabbing pain started in my upper chest. This pain continued all night. It came at various different places in my upper chest, and each time only lasted a few seconds. I was barely able to sleep – but apparently I did, because I also woke up and it was morning. And when I woke up, the first thing I did was cry out with pain.
I cried out with pain because when I moved my fingers I had a real bad pain in my hands. Simultaneously I realized that my mouth and nose were so dry that I needed fluid immediately. I rushed to the kitchen and got myself a glass of water. I blew my nose and blood came out. A little later a lot of dried blood came out, and that led to a nose bleed. And the pains in my chest were apparently still there.
The chest pains continued until Monday night (two days), as did the nose bleed. On Monday night I made a doctor’s appointment for Tuesday. The pains had stopped by them, and the doctor examined me, but everything was fine. The doctor explained to me that the pains had been due to muscle cramps in my bronchial tubes, a reaction to the smoke. I have sensitive bronchial tubes anyway, and he says that even while I smoked I had problems, which is true, but that since I stopped smoking my bronchial tubes have recovered and can’t cope with smoke any more.
The nose bleeds continued and increased over the next two weeks. I bought myself some spray at the chemist which didn’t help. Finally I went to the ENT doctor. He took a look in my nose and said he would have to cauterize the places in my nose that were bleeding. This was a simple procedure and stopped the heavy bleeding. He gave me an oil-based nose spray and after another two or three weeks the bleeding stopped.
This just left the pain in my hands, which just got worse and worse. It started as a short-lived pain every morning when I woke up and over the course of the last 3 months has increased so that every time my hands are idle for a few minutes, the pain starts up.
When I told my doctor that this had started after the evening I spent with my friends the smokers, he looked at me like I had a screw loose (which might well also be the case!). That was impossible, he said, I just had some tension in my shoulders. Well, I tried massage, and doing arm and shoulder exercises at the gym, but nothing helped. Then I went to my orthopedist, who x-rayed my hands and told me I have stage one arthritis. If this is stage one than I do not want to get to stage two, never mind stage four!
After four visits to the orthopedist, who kept telling me that arthritis can be activated and become painful overnight, I told him I can’t stand it any more and that there must be something more to it. Finally the orthopedist, and I’m not sure if he really understands the word “pain”, had the idea that my hand arthritis is in an “inflammation phase”, which might well be due to my exposure to the smoking action, and told me to try some anti-inflammatory medication.
I can report that after only two days of this medication it’s already better.
Incredible as this story sounds, it’s really true. I really did get all these problems after sitting for three and a half hours in a large room with two heavy smokers. And that after 30-odd years of smoking myself. Anyone still smoking out there, do please quit now.
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