It 's Never too Late to Quit Smoking

  Quit smoking - When I was a nursing   student, I was assigned to take care of a   patient at one of the local facilities. When   I first saw him, this person was very   short of breath and was on continuous   oxygen. He had to stop speaking between   sentences so he could catch his breath
  and with every step he took, he had to   stop and rest.

  This patient had been a smoker for many   years and he told me he had stopped smoking “about a month ago”. He had developed COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). This condition is very common on people who have smoked for a long time.

I followed him for 2 weeks and continued to observe his torment and then I was sent to another facility. I thought about the patient quite often because I had never seen anyone in such a bad shape.

5 years later, he was admitted to my unit which of course it was a pleasure to see him again. He had come in with exacerbation of his COPD but this was a totally different man I had seen 5 years before. He was off the oxygen and he was breathing a lot better. What stroke me the most is that he was speaking almost like a normal person and was able to walk longer distances without his walker and without resting every few steps.

Even though his condition was at its worse when I first met him, quitting smoking and medication management made a difference on this man’s life.

Remember smoking can lead to long term respiratory diseases and also it can lead to long term conditions such as heart disease and high blood pressure. I hope you know why stop smoking is extremely important for your health. The effects of smoking to your body can be tremendous.

Steps you need to take to stop harming your body are to read about smoking facts and to look for stop smoking programs. It is never, never too late.

Return from quit smoking to the main personal stories page

Return from quit smoking to the home page