Ada Ma said:There are studies that shows that most people have overestimated the
risks of getting cancer as a result of smoking. OK, before you guy
start jumping on me I'll try to be clearer and illustrate my point with
an example.
Say e.g. that the risk of developing lung cancer by the age of 40 if one
smokes 10 cigarettes a day is 30%. But if you ask a random group of
pedestrians to give you an estimated probability of developing lung
cancer at the circumstances cited above is possibly 50%.
That's true. Likewise, people got all freaked out about alar in apples and
women are far more likely to worry about breast cancer when heart disease
is a much bigger killer of women.
That said. Have you ever *seen* someone die of lung cancer? My mother was
62 years old. She was otherwise extremely healthy (full disclosure prompts
me to add that she did have a small breast cancer, but her doctors agreed
that there was only a very small chance that that would have killed her
and in fact before the lung cancer was found they expected that she would
make a full recovery from that). It was a horrible death. She didn't want
to go to a hospital, and with the help of hospice and one of my sisters
(we all helped as we could, but she went and stayed at my parents' house
for most of my mother's illness) my mother was able to die at home. But it
was a terrible experience for everyone.
She left a grandson whom she adored and on whom she was a tremdous
influence. She never saw her other two grandsons. My father, her husband
of over 40 years, died a little over a year after her death. I can't prove
it, but I absolutely believe that he died because of her death.
I miss her. I'd love to be able to show off my dieting success to her. I'd
love to be able to call her and ask her some questions I have about
cooking my turkey. Mostly though, I regret the fact that her grandsons are
going to grow up without her. She had a gift for opening children's minds
to learning and teaching them to be decent human beings with it.
Her death was preventable. She was very honest that while the cigarette
companies may have misled her about the risks, that she chose to continue
smoking even when she knew the risks. She did, eventually, quit, but by
then it was too late.
While it is true that the risk that any one smoker will die of lung cancer
is not, in fact, all that high, it's still a bad, avoidable death. And the
losses beyond the person themself are incalculable.
None of this has anything to do with Luna. Like everything else, she won't
be able to quit until she's in the place where she's ready to do it. I
hope it comes soon for her. I work at a University and I see the young
people, especially the girls, walking around with cigarettes and I want to
shake them. I want to tell them about the black vomit and the smell and
that if they're smoking for weight loss, yes, they will be thin when they
die. But, in a way, I think they underestimate the risk. They know that
that will happen to some percentage of people, but never to *them.*. But,
of course, it wouldn't do any good. All I can hope is that if, in the end,
it is them, that their passing will be easier than what I witnessed.
Martha
Oh, happy Thanksgiving, everyone.
--
"ALPO is 99 cents a can. That's over SEVEN dog dollars!!"
Revek - ASDLC
