I spent a little time at a nursing home Thursday, just visiting with the residents. A man, about 60 years old had a device over his nose and mouth and steam was leaking out of it. He took it off to visit with me and I asked him what the device was for. He said he had smoked for 40 years and this was to help clear congestion from his lungs so he didn’t die. He has to use it 3 times every day or he will choke to death. He begged me to talk to every young smoker I know and ask them not to smoke so they don’t end up an invalid like him.
I’ll top that with another story. I used to work in respiratory therapy in a surgical ICU and took care of many patients on ventilators post-surgery and weaning them off the device to where they could breathe unassisted and go home.
We had a gentleman come from the nursing home, who due to smoking all his life was on a ventilator permanently, hooked to a tracheostomy in his throat. When he was stable, the nurses in the home could monitor him but when he began to worsen he would be shuttled to the hospital for extra care.
When a ventilator becomes unhooked or a line becomes blocked one or more alarms go off, and regularly alarms would come from his room. By the time I walked in, the alarms would stop, and I would find everything in order. Then a following night I found out the source of the alarms. I came into the ICU with the alarms going off in his room, and entered to find the man had removed the machine that was breathing for him, and had retrieved a secret stash of cigarettes, and was in the act of lighting and smoking one by sticking it into the tracheostomy hole in his throat.
The nurses called him the Marlboro Man.
I can appreciate what you are saying. I wouldn’t encourage any of my 13 grandchildren to take up smoking..I think some of those that get cancer are predispositioned to it...My sister is 80 and has been smoking since she was 13. She has no breathing problems or needs oxygen...I also started at 13. I am not bragging just saying for many long time smokers without problems. My family has a predisposition to diabetes, 2 of my sons, a niece are diabetes...My mother told me when I started to have kids, diabetes seems to skip a generation and my neice was the first female to have it..My husbands family have a predisposition to heart trouble....he died at 51 and 2 of my sons have cardiac problems...its always good to know the family history when it comes to where the weakness in the dna is...
I am sorry for the gentleman you talked with, Your friend was being given oxygen via the mask. with moisture to keep the lungs moist....(Not too many smokers in the family, one of the son’s never smoked legal cigarettes, his brother quits periodically....the other 3 are non smokers