doctor visit thursday

By hugs Sunday, June 21, 2009

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well I had to go to get x-rays on thursday and to my dissmay I was told I have also been diagnosed with emphazima now Im 54 years old I work full time and yes unfortunetly Im a smoker I dont enjoy it but I cant seem to quit my doctor told me if my oxegen level doesnt change in 6 weeks Im on oxegen for the rest of my life he perscibed me 3 new meds and the co pays were through the roof now I recently got laid off till august and I cant get my persciption they were meds to help me breath and two were to help with quitting smoking I did pay for the breathing meds but I couldnt afford the other I dont understand why the insurence compant wont help me with this would they rather cover my lung cancer payments or help me quit smoking I honestly want to quit but I cant seem to do it if you are or were a smoker you understand what Im going through.can anyone give me some hints on how to do this????

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Hope

6/21/09 7:31pm

I went camping for a week and no cigarettes with me. My husband loved me enough not to take me to go get any. Iwas no allowed to have the keys to car and we were miles for any stores any ways. The entire week we hiked up mountains , went canooing, swimming and sat around the campfire all night. I not once thought about having a smoke and haven't had one since, it's been nine years. I would encourage you to quit. I watched my sisters father in law die from emphazima it was awful. He lived 10 years after he was diagnosed and never quit smoking. He didn't live a good life after that. Constantly attached to a tank, can;t do normal every day stuff because you can't breath. Not only that but your running the risk of getting all sorts of cancer, not just lung. WE (ra people) have enough problems with our meds,don't add to it or make it worse by smoking. My sisters father in law had several different types of cancer all caused by the smoking. He spent his last two years alive in and out of hospitals with cancer and constantly being on and off respirators. Your life is worth so much more than that.You can quit, you do have it in you, you just need to look a little deeper. Try the camping, it was better than taking the pills that help you quit but keep you up all night. Good luck to you.

hugs

6/22/09 10:47am

thank you so much for your reply I know the terrible feeling of watching my own dad suffer with this disease he did quit smoking cold turkey when he was 50 and never went to the doctors until after my mom passed we had to convince him they did find he had emphazima he was 79 a year latter he was put on oxegen and before the tank he was an active man then when he had to carry the tank everywere he went he kinda gave up felt like a burden he slowly died everyday then at 81 he passed away so you would think that me seeing this would have gave me a jolt but it didnt I can say however last night I went to bed only had 3 ciggerettes left normally I would have ran to get more but no It is now 10.30 the next day and I proudly still have 1 left so I really do think I can do this say a prayer for me Im to young for this thank-you hugs

Lene Andersen, Health Guide

6/22/09 10:33am

I quit smoking five years ago cold turkey. At first, I told myself that I was going to go without cigarettes for three days and then if I wanted to badly enough, I could smoke again. I took it an hour at a time, sometimes half an hour at a time, continuing to delay smoking and after three days, the physical addiction had abated somewhat. Moreover, on the fourth day, I met a friend of mine who smokes and could smell the stink of cigarettes on her and that made me decide to continue trying to quit. They say it takes three weeks to create a habit, so in those three weeks, you face reminders of smoking all the time. And then there's the first three months to make your new non-smoking habit stick and after that it gets much easier.

You have to make up your mind to quit for yourself - you can't quit for anyone else, then it won't work. You're lucky that you have really good motivation in terms of emphysema to quit - one of the things that helped me quit that my asthma was getting worse and worse and after being smoke-free for couple of days, I could feel my lungs clearing up and I felt much better. That helped, too. You may want to check out our stop smoking site and a friend of mine found a lot of help on QuitNet, as well.

hugs

6/22/09 10:54am

thank you for the reply so far today Ihave only had three ciggerettes and for me thats a mile stone I dont have any left in the house and trying my best not to run to the store(actually drive if I tried to run Id be laid out on the road)lol a little humor anyway Im going to try and try again Ive done it before years ago so I know I can do it now thank-you hugs

Lene Andersen, Health Guide

6/22/09 11:01am

Way to go! One of the things that help me a lot was what they called the 4 Ds of quitting: Distract, Drink water, Delay and I forget the last one. When you get the urge to smoke, distract yourself with doing something (my place was incredibly clean and neat for the first couple of weeks), take a drink of water or tell yourself you're going to delay having a cigarette for another 15 minutes. When I was quitting, I read somewhere that a craving tends to not last more than five minutes at a time, so if you can make it through those five minutes, you're good for a while. Of course, you'll have those five minutes of cravings all the time, especially the first three days, but hang in there. They become less and less frequent.

Another thing that helped me was to separate what I wanted from what the addiction to cigarettes wanted. Every time I thought I wanted to smoke, I rephrased it and said to myself that I did not want to smoke, it was the addiction that wanted a cigarette. Realizing that I wanted something different than the addiction wanted made it easier to fight.

hugs

6/23/09 10:00am

I would say the last d you couldnt remember is dont( LOL) seriously I dont know what it would be but it made sence right .and you are right my house never been so clean its funny I do find it hard when Im on the computer not to light up and I play alot of computer games and the dam thing would only burn out sitting there anyway so why should I bother to light one up anyway thanks for the support Im going to do this no matter what it takes

Lene Andersen, Health Guide

6/23/09 10:33am

I hear you - my hardest times were the computer and when I was on the phone. But you get there, one situation associated with smoking at a time.

Please let us know how things go?

dryeyes2

6/22/09 1:56pm

I'm sorry that you have been dx with Emphazema. But i am so glad that you posted this-i too am trying to quit!!! Acutally me and my husband have got to quit. We have set a quit date. I have been smoking for 30 years..way too long-and my husband has smoked for close to that also. It is now to the point that we cannot put this off any longer-our health is at serious risk too! It is exciting...to think of how much better off we wil be with out those nasty things, i really hate the smell and i cannot tollerate when smoke gets in my face-it is crazy that i'm smoking. And how much better we will feel-we are diffinatly going to be walkiing..which we have not done much of that these days. And all the money we will be saving!!!! We can go shopping & out to eat more often. You "CAN" do this and so can we-yay-i'm hyped! P.s. I have mild COPD with a strong family history of Lung diseases-my biological father had Enphazema,and heart problems. My mom never smoked and had chronic Broncitis & diabetes, and severe Osteoarthritis in both knees. And her brother-my uncle has severe COPD & his heart is so bad..they cannot do anything with it, he is also a colon cancer servivor of 2 years now! And my husband has heart problems. So there ya go...gotta do somthing soon!

hugs

6/23/09 9:49am

thank-you so much for replying and It makes it seem a little eiaser and fun to know someone elese out there is desperatly trying this addiction do you know that trying to quit smoking is harder than an heroin addict quitting that its true read up on it thats crazy and the really sad thing is my insurence and proberly most others will pay for an addict to go through rehab and get meds free but I have to pay 170.00+70.00+50.00 dollers for a CO_PAY for the meds my doctor just perscibed last week well needless to say I could only afford the 50 doller one last week this week I will pay for the 70 dolller one and then the week after that the other now how is it suppose to help my illness like that Im almost scared to find ouy if they would even cover the oxegen i f I end up on it this country and there ins thingy is crazy they would rather pay you to quit your job and go on social security disability than help a person get healthy and I pay alot for my ins premium at my job anyway I wish you and your husband the best and I would really love to here from you again so we together can give a little support keep up the good workI know we can hugs

dryeyes2

6/23/09 2:27pm

Ohhhh yeah, it is very, very very, hard to quit! It's as hard...if not harder than lossing weight-when you have a real weight problem that is. And i have that problem too! G-whiz

-i'm full of problems. Whell 1 problem at a time! I have already give up on the weight thing,lol.

It is going to be a hard journey, but we can do this...people do it all the time.

dryeyes2

6/22/09 2:08pm

I meant to say NOW! We gotta do somthing NOW!!!

doctor visit thursday

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