I am giving no excuses but I wish I had the courage and the tenacity to be able to stop. Perhaps the only for me is to be faced with the big C and the trauma of having to go through the treatment and the pain like FBS to stop. By the way FBS hats off to you mate you have guts.
Thank you but I don't think I have guts, I got ill, I got cured, other people suffer far far worse than me.
Not surprisingly I found giving up smoking extremely easy after going through various treatments.
I don't like to keep bangin' on about it but I sometimes despair that of all my social circle only one person actually gave up smoking after seeing the crap I went through. That one person was Glenn Tilbrook, musician, who saw what I was going through and so visited a hypnotist to stop him smoking and it worked. That made me feel good.
A lot of people won't get cancer from smoking, it's just the way we're built, though they may suffer a plethora of other illnesses caused by smoking. My consultant likened the steady stream of smoke passing across my throat to causing an allergy, that allergy showing itself as cancer.
He also said lots of people won't be 'allergic' to smoke but to my mind it's like playing russian roulette.
Could I try and put smokers off of smoking? May I list, briefly, what may happen to you if you develop a form of cancer of the head and neck? Ok, I will
Well, this is what smoking caused to happen to me.
Major surgery to neck, cancer-infected lymph gland and one tonsil removed, four hour operation with live biopsies carried out in an attempt to find primary cancer failed to find anything.
Four months latter CAT scan showed primary, it had grown and was on the base of my tongue.
One month later exploratory under general anaesthetic showed cancer had spread rapidly to larger area of tongue base and upper area of oesophagus.
Prior to commencement of radiotherapy and chemotherapy lots of tests, needles and whole face being encased in plaster of paris to make face mask to hold head steady during radiation treatment.
Feeding tube inserted through stomach wall under heavy sedation. To do this a spike was pushed through my stomach wall and the tube fed through and taped to my upper chest. This was a precaution in case I couldn't swallow food during the radiotherapy. I had to clean the tube every day and occasionaly sterilise it. I couldn't take a bath that rose above this tube and as I didbn't have a shower at the time, that wasn't much fun.
Six weeks of radiotherapy, mon-fri, machines often broke down which meant that if my session was at 5pm I often didn't leave hospital until 7.30pm waiting for machine to be repaired.
Half way through treatment noticed taste buds dying, five weeks into treatment taste buds died completely, all food tasted like cardboard, all drinks tasted like water. Neck and ears bleeding from radiation-induced 'burns' where skin cracked. A fair few pillow cases ruined.
Throat very very sore, eating very difficult, lost two stone in weight (which made me 9.5 stone, I'm 11.5 stone now). At end of treatment suffering from dry mouth, saliva glands permanently damaged by radiation.
Three treatments of chemotherapy scheduled. Four hour session on drip, given diuretics to make me pass urine quicker to disperse the chemicals quickly. Had to urinate in a large vase and note on a graph how much water I'd passed each time.
Second chemotherapy session caused me to suffer loss of hearing of high frequencies and suffer occasional tinitus. Still get the tinitus, but it's not as frequent now and only lasts a few minutes at most each time. I was given a choice to have third chemo session being warned that it could make me deaf but if I declined it would reduce my chances of cure by 5%. I chose not to have it, didn't see much point in living if I couldn't hear my music.
During chemo wrote a song 'Chemotherapy' in the style of the Offspring, My Chemical Romance, eat your heart out.
And after it was all over, I'm left with:
Impaired taste though this has recently almost returned to normal, things are now starting to taste like they used to. This has taken four years to happen.
Permanent dry mouth, and this is the biggest downer of all, I can only eat foods high in moisture which means lots of sauces, soups and gravy. Sandwiches, McDonalds, Steaks, crisps and lots more are now off the menu.
Huge neck scar.
Neck cramps.
Numbness around neck & shoulder area.
Can't grow a beard now.
Reduced immune system in neck and throat area.
The knowledge that if the cancer returns, no person can have two lots of radiotherapy, one body area couldn't stand it, so the only solution would be radical surgery - the removal of the voice box leaving a gaping hole in the neck and being unable to speak or eat through the mouth.
I also can't wear dentures as having little saliva makes them too uncomforatble to wear. This means when I lose the few teeth I have left, it's puree'ed food only for me.
I suffer from lymphodema in the right side of my face as the lymph gland that was removed cleared water from this area so I now get fluid retention. This means the right hand side of my face is swollen and red, permanently. The swelling comes and goes, sometimes it's worse than others but it's almost always there.
This has reduced my self-confidence with women a great deal, I figure I'll be solo til my dying days now.
And on top of that there's the mental anguish of the whole thing, I could write a small book on this I think but suffice to say for about four months, five months after the treatments had finished, I suffered Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome. And I didn't even realise that's what it was, it really wasn't very much fun.
Ok, I've prattled on, only reason I've written all this is in the hope that anybody who smokes sees sense and quits now. Please forgive me if I seem like a self-righteous prick.
You still want to light up?
On the plus side, I can now run for a bus, I ride my bicycle regularly and I don't stink permanently. Plus I hear fags are now around a fiver a packet, bloody hell, 35 quid a week to kill yourself.
To anybody who wants to quit smoking you have my sincere best wishes and I wish you luck.
