WHY PEOPLE SHOULDN'T  SMOKE

(An interview with my grandmother by Ignacio Zaragoza)

Q.   What health problems do you have that are directly attributed to your cigarette smoking?

A.   I have an ulcer in my stomach, congestive heart disease, and emphysema.

Q. How has having emphysema affected your life?

A.   What life?  I don't have a life anymore.  I can be outside only an hour.  I can't do any of the things        that I used to do. I can't go fishing.  I can't even see my grandchildren because I cannot go on            long trips.

Q.   How does your having this disease affect the members of your family and how does this make you     feel?

A.   It's robbed my husband of his life, too. It's also robbed my children of their mother and my                  grandchildren of their grandmother.  It hurts me to know that my family is suffering because of              something that I've done to myself.

Q.   Why, when you first discovered that you had emphysema, did you not quit smoking?

A.   I didn't feel bad.  I didn't know what it would do to me. The doctors never showed me what it would      do to my body. Up until 1991, I had been in and out of the hospital with pneumonia, and my chest      was congested. Then somebody told me about emphysema. I tried to quit, but the temptation            was too strong.  I prayed and prayed, and eventually the Lord helped me to quit.

Q.   What do you regret most about smoking?

A.  The way that it has affected my body and my family.  The fact that I ever started to smoke in the          first place.

Q.   Why did you finally decide to quit smoking?

A.   I was lying here in the hospital, thinking about all the bad things that had been happening to me           and all the time I was missing being able to be with my family.

Q.   How did you feel about smoking then and how do you feel now?

A.   Well, when I first started smoking, there wasn't all this concern about the health issues associated      with smoking.  Back then everybody smoked. It was the cool thing to do. I hate it. I hate                   cigarettes.  I let them rob me of my health and family.  Cigarettes are very bad for you.  They are          as addictive as alcohol and drugs are.

     It took me almost five years to quit.  And I tried all those stop-smoking aids, like nicorette gum,          patches you put on your arms, hypno-therapy, and even acupunture.  I spent a lot of money on           three different hypnotists.  Nothing worked. Even catching on fire did not inspire me to quit                 smoking.

     What finally did it was my really wanting to quit and lots of prayer.  But now I can't go anywhere           without my ``buddy" - my oxygen tank, which was how I caught on fire. I was lighting a cigarette           with the oxygen on and it caught fire. Given the choice again, I would never start to smoke.

Q.   If one good thing could come from your condition, what would it be?

A.   That I could get the message to people that, if they haven't started to smoke, don't. And if they          have already started, then quit. Now. It's a matter of life and death. You might think it's cool now,     but you will regret it later in life.

Q.   What does your doctor say your future health will be like?

A.   The damage has been done. Since there is no cure, the disease will progressively worsen and I          will die. A person who suffers from emphysema slowly suffocates to death.  But my doctor has         told me that I may die from an infection that they cannot cure or congestive heart failure before the      emphysema kills me.  I have no future.

[At the time of this interview, which I conducted over the telephone, my grandmother was 51 years old and I was twelve.  My grandmother had been diagnosed with emphysema and congestive heart disease.  She was then a patient in Saint John's Medical Center in Oxnard, Calfironia.  Since then my grandmother has died.]