Smoking and Cancer

PhillieG said:

Hmmm
Lots of things cause cancer. Everything can't be banned. If a person chooses to smoke then they have to deal with the consequences.
I find it humorous when I go to Sloan for treatments and I see all of the people outside puffing away. Duh???? They don't get it. I guess thy see how much "fun" all of us people with cancer are having and want to join us! Society can not, nor should they, protect everyone for everything that is deemed dangerous. What about alcohol, coffee, tanning salons, cell phones...the list can go on forever.

I think I understand what you're saying, it's a no-brained that smoking tobacco products GREATLY increases your likelihood of checking out early!

BTW: I can't stand the smell of cigarettes.

John23 said:

Freedom to smoke.
My mother smoked three to four packs a day since she was ten, she had said.
She married my father when she was 18 and they died a few years apart,
just a few years ago. He smoked as much as she did, and they were together
nearly 24/7/365.

She developed lung cancer and the prognoses was 6 months to a year.
She continued to smoke until the end of her life, some 17 years later, in
spite of only having one lung, and a cancerous one at that.

My father never developed cancer of any type.

Cancer is an insidious disease, not limited to smokers; not caused
exclusively by smoke.

Yeah, it's a lousy habit, and I don't miss it one bit, but to make things
illegal to "save someone from self destruction" isn't conducive to
freedom and liberty.

There are a million things that can kill, you can't outlaw them all,
and in this Nation, it's wrong to try.

Annabelle41415 said:

Banning from Society
Although I am a former smoker, I believe they have their rights too. If there is smoking in a restaurant, I just choose to sit in the non-smoking section. Someone I went to school with got lung cancer and died at the age of 23 and never smoked a day in his life. This is a slippery slope when we start banning things from society.

Kim

nudgie said:

I had to post
after reading the heading and comments. I am an ex-smoker. Quit in 2006, but smoked for 20 years. I started at age 11 and continued until age 42 when I was DX with Stage II colon cancer. I had tried in the past to quite, but the desire and will was not there.

I was still smoking when I was DX in 2006. It was funny, my husband told me that I had asked the surgeon if I could have a ciggeratee before my surgery. I don't remember, those good meds

While in ICU, I can remember making my husband take me outside, so I could have a cig, I think only two during my 7 day stay.

Then during the beginning of chemo treatments, I would go down and have a cig before I received my chemo drugs, which was out front of the hospital with IV Roller in hand.

Then around Sept / Oct timeframe, I went out in my garage to have a cig (can't smoke in house) and while I was smoking something did not taste or feel right, so I put the cig out and never touched another one.

It was the chemo that helped me quite, so something good did come it. My husband and brother-in-law still smoke, but it does not bother me. I can be around smokers and I good.

The hospitals I received my surgeries and chemo at are not a SMOKE FREE campus.

coloCan said:

Pisses me off
when I see people smoking in frony of cancer center Igo to. They smoke, some even snuff out rest of cig and put it in pocket for later and enter facility for treatment. Makes ya wonder why do chemo/radiation and still smoke> Like people with COPD and oxygen at Atlantic City, for example, turning off oxygen to smoke a cigarette.I smoked for 35 years till Dx COPD Nov 2000. My past drinking also contributed to my cancer....I]ve almost gotten into fights asking/telling people not to smoke by bench at entrance to center, especially some big ****++++ smoking a cigar. Came real close to cracking my wooden cane over his head but can't afford to have stoma/**** get hurt...Steve