What I'm about to convey is graphic in what happened so if you're the least bit queezy I would suggest skipping my post.
My smoking started when I was 24...I quit when I was pregnant with my 2nd child (didn't smoke with my first), started again the day my 2nd child was born, quit 12 years later, started again because a role I played (community theater) required I smoked and I started up again and was smoking for seven years when my step-mom called me from the hospital to say she'd been diagnosed with lung cancer...from smoking. I listened as she struggled to breathe and talk. Her life expectancy was about a year. The next day we received a call and it had been shortened to 3-6 months. The next morning I boarded a plane to be with her. She was in the hospital and was going to be sent home...to die. Her three daughters and two sons (I was a step-daughter) were shown how to administer morphine into a thing in her stomach. A hospice nurse checked on her daily but most of the time she sat her in bed at home waiting to die. My step-mom had been a bad step-mom and a day after I arrived she whispered to me how sorry she was for being such a bad step-mom. She asked my forgiveness. Each day she struggled more and more for breath but it was obvious the fluids in her lungs were winning. The day before she died I sat on her bed and watched her, never leaving her side. I washed her body with cool, wet cloths and cried silently as I watched her struggle for breath. I didn't know that night would be her last night on earth. The morning she died was horrible. She woke up once and smiled at me and said hi. I asked her if she wanted anything. She wanted a bite of doughnut and I placed a tiny piece in her mouth. She smiled at me and closed her eyes. After that she never really came back around. For several hours she continued losing the battle to breathe, fluids seeped through the pores of her skin and soaked her bed sheets, blood spots formed on the surface of her skin and I was struggling with the horrible sounds of her lungs screaming for air. Her mouth worked like a fish out of water and I prayed to God that she wasn't aware of anything. I'd never watched anyone die, much less someone I cared about. My Aunt had seen this before and I asked her how much worse it was going to get...she looked at me and said, "worse." I didn't know how it could get worse but it did. I prayed for God to end it. My sister and I sat on her bed and at some point we whispered for her to let go. Not five minutes later she did and I was shocked and numbed at what I'd witnessed. From the day I arrived (on a Sunday) it took her six days to die. She was only 55 years of age. Watching my step-mom die made me quit cold turkey. I told myself my children would never have to watch or listen to me dying like that. I have never picked up another cigarette and know I never will. I truly believe my step-mom saved my life. Three months later my dad died from his smoking (his heart exploded) and he'd been suffering with emphasema and another type of lung ailment. My half sister died at 49 from lung cancer. Anyone who has to watch someone die from that self imposed death sentence would never, ever pick up another cigarette...or one would hope.