Bob:

Your posting made me laugh out loud, especially when you said you read the posting while smoking a cigarette.

Brings me back in time to three years ago when the girl across the street (Marilyn) had not been feeling well. I've lived on my block for 15 years and have become very friendly with my neighbors. One has to do that when one's family ostrasizes you for having a mentally ill son, who's a gambler. When the family goes, all you really have are friends and neighbors and thank god, I'm a social butterfly.

So we all used to meet outside (for years) in the warm weather and shoot the breeze. About 40 of us. Marilyn had started to feel ill. Her doctor said it was an ocular migraine. She always smoked. She and my girlfriend's husband would walk to the corner (to get away from the non-smokers), and do their thing. Well, her skin began to turn yellow, (she would sit in the sun and we all thought it was a tan, we really did think this). She went to work every day. She ate well. She was a beautiful 53 year old blond single woman.

She once told me "melody, I think smoking is good for the body because I haven't had a cold in 20 years". I just laughed because I knew I couldn't talk her out of it. But I wouldn't go into her house because of the second hand smoke, and once, her tv set broke and since I'm the resident fixer on the block, she called me in. I immediately felt the smoke in the air and said something to the effect "Marilyn, you have to stop smoking" and she literally ran me out of her house. I never forgot that.

But we still sat outside. Then she began to get weak and went for medical tests but nothing came out of them.

Then one day, a neighbor called me up and said "Melody, you and my husband have to take Marily to the hospital, her doctor called, something about her white cell count and she has to go to the ER"

I dropped everything I was carrying, raced to her house and there she was, not even able to get up our of the chair, all yellow and her hair came out in my hands in fistfulls. My other friend's husband just looked at me.

We gently guided her into the car and took her to Maimonides Hospital telling the admitting people that she was expected. Well, they had no clue. So they put her in a little cubicle. The head nurse was throwing everybody out of the ER because you can only stay in the back in the cubicles for one hour. My friend was petrified and kept saying "don't leave me". I said "don't worry". I took my shoes off, sat in a chair, hung my tongue out of my mouth like I was dying, and waiting to see a physician and the head nurse just passed me by. I did this everytime she started to kick out the people. I was able to stay in the ER for 8 hours with Marilyn. During all that time, various interns and residents making rounds would stop by her and question her. After the second round of questions, she would point to me and say "Ask Melody, she knows what's wrong with me". I would then answer all questions because I knew her whole history and medical stuff.

They ran all kinds of tests. In a few hours, a female doctor comes over to us and looks at Marilyn and says: "There's a mass on your liver" She looks at me and says "what does that mean"? I asked the doctor to explain and she did. She told Marilyn, Your liver is supposed to be this size and then she stretched out her arms and said "this is how big your liver is". She then told Marilyn she would have to have surgery.

Marilyn, up to that point, was sitting up, drinking water and although weak, was perfectly lucid, and ambulatory.

Well, as the hours passed by, her other friends showed up and my friend's husband came to pick me up and take me home. I kissed her good bye and never saw her again. After that day, she refused to have any visitors. She knew.......

One of her friends called us up and said "come to my house, we are having a meeting about Marilyn, and I want to tell all of you at once".

We all showed up at Anna Lee's basement and sat around. About 13 of us. Marilyn had absolutely no family except for two distant cousins she hadn't seen in 20 years.

So Anna Lee blurts out "There's good news and Bad News". We just looked at her. The bad news was that Marilyn had Stage 4 Lung Cancer that had spread to the bone, brain, and whatever. I said "and What's the good news??" Anna Lee said "well the doctor told her that she can get chemo and be back to work in no time." I just looked at Anna Lee and said nothing.

With that, one of the men sitting at the table got up to outside and get a smoke. I did not know this man from a hole in the wall, but since he just got the news that Marilyn was diagnosed with Stage 4 Lung Cancer, I could not for the life of me understand how this man could go outside and have a smoke. As he got up I said quietly said "didn't you hear what Anna Lee said?? " His reply, "oh, yes, and I had cancer a few years ago, and I had chemo". "But I still smoke and can't stop". His wife was sitting next to him and looked very sad and said "believe me I've tried".

That's when it hit me. This stuff in these cigarettes is more addictive, more deadly, than any hot fudge sundae I could ever stuff in my mouth.

If a man can sit at a table and hear that his friend has stage 4 lung cancer and he himself has had cancer, and then he has to go out and smoke, than all the talking in the world is not going to do any good. There will obviously be no lightbulb moment for this guy. (He has since passed away).

They gave Marilyn one chemo treatment and she died the next morning, at the age of 53. Her birthday was during the week. She died exactly 7 days from when we first took her to the hospital. No family whatsoever, so her two distant cousins were called and they had no choice but to come and make arrangements.

On my mom's death certificate, it said: "Contributory cause of death, cigarette smoking".

I know the government allows Big Tobacco to continue to sell these deadly things because it's all about MONEY!!!

I think it's dreadful that nothing is being done to take these things off the shelves. I see young people smoking all the time because a), they think it's cool, b), they have absolutely no clue what the ramifications are for their future c). They are idiot 16 year olds with no brains.

The government is supposed to look out for us, protect us from evil doers, etc. etc. I don't see that happening any time soon, as long as a person can go into a supermarket or any kind of convenience store and purchase a pack of butts that clearly say on the pack 'cigarettes are hazardous to your health, quitting smoking now, will greatly reduce your chances , blah blah blah".

Bob, I really know you want to quit. It's just very hard.

You have had the lightbulb moment. You just have to get up one day (and one day you will), and tell yourself "not another day, will I put something in my mouth that can give me cancer". not another day will I do this".

May not happen for a while. But it will. I think if you read and re-read this story and other stories, that maybe one day, you will try and quit. It's hard. We can only hope.

Here's hoping you live long and prosper, as my friend Mr. Spock used to say.

Take care,
Melody