Wednesday 5 April - I quit

In my corner of the Ward there are four beds in a bay: the other three have been vacated by their occupants as they have been either discharged or moved to another bed. It would appear I have the bay to myself until an Irish fellow is moved into the bed opposite me. He is quietly spoken and ready for bed early but lights will not go out until the nurses have done their rounds for the night. Irish will leave the hospital a few days later without the operation he had hoped for on his heart, he is too old and an operation will not improve the quality of his life.

Today I gave up smoking: two Cancer skirmishes and now watching Irish taking oxygen through a mask has really done it for me this time. Why tobacco companies have never invested more money, or any at all, into the research and development of a harmless smoke I will never know. They would have made a fortune, well from me they would have. Nevertheless, I still believe alcohol and its affects drains more of the NHS resource than ever smoking does. I have never had a few cigars and then wanted to pick a fight with someone, or drove my car under the influence of smoke, resulting in fatalities.

On a scarier note I do recall watching on television, [more years ago than I care to mention], a man who had his leg amputated as a result of a smoking related illness: yet he still refused to quit the weed. Needless to say he eventually lost the other leg too, he would never again hop down to his local shop for his tobacco. I did think at the time of watching it how weak willed he must have been not to quit: and now look at me, I use ‘patches’ 2 years ago to stop smoking cigarettes and then start smoking cigars instead. The trip to a hypnotherapy is yet another whole blog, I really did not get on with being ‘put under’, in fact I was not put under at all and left the hypnotist wanting a cigarette as soon as I was out of her front door.