Quit Smoking

Smoking is injurious to health.

Everyone knows it is injurious to health. It causes various fatal illness in human. But still we smoke and smoke more than before. Around 90% to 80% of lung cancer in both men and women is due to cigarette smoking. Tar, Nicotine and Carbon monoxide are by products of cigarette which gets into the smokers body and the reason for all the illness.

I wish to share one of my close relative's fatal story here.

This is my uncle, my dad's own brother. He used to love me a lot and was very close to me. He is the only uneducated in my family and is involved in agriculture. A real hard worker and as every farmer is very innocent. My grandfather use to smoke and he too got into this habit of smoking.

As per my knowledge his marriage was not much happy and so it made him into a chain smoker. He had two kids. It all happened in a span of two years when I was in college. First I was told that he is not feeling well and is being treated for TB. When I met him during my trip to home I sensed something serious and I suggested my aunty, his wife to take him for better hospital and conduct all the test. So then came the shocking news that he is affected by throat cancer. He was treated at Jipmer, Pondicherry and very soon they informed that its at advanced stage and they recommended to Adayar Cancer Institute Hospital, Chennai. Being at Adayar cancer Institute, all the tests were repeated, a painful one.

But the truth prevailed, the threat cancer has reached advanced stage and cant be cured. It is said all is over. By now he has reached a stage where he cant take his food. So a hole in the throat and a pipe to feed him. One should look at this scene and he will never think of smoking if he puts him in that place. Soon they asked him to be taken back as its just days before he lives his final day. We took him back to our village and he was living a pathetic life, unable to move, all in bed.

Once when I visited him, he was literally crying and asking to take care of the kids who were just just 8 and 5 by then and me just 19 yrs old. The words not coming out clearly since the throat has been wholed. I can see the pain in his eyes he is feeling physically to speak those few words. Can sense the stinking smell? So bad that he lived with that stinking smell? Everyone from his family became casual except him for he only knows the pain of leaving. Since I was attached to him, I as able to understand his feelings more than his kids who are again kids to understand his emotions.

The worst was waiting. Went for my exams and know I can be back only after 2 months. One fine day I received a call from my father, saying he is dead and they have cremated him. I shouted at him that he should have informed me. But the reply he gave was terrific and I didnt even dare to imagine what he explained.

Since I left for my exams, his illness for worst and it seems worms started to spam on his wounds. Since he was lying down continuously he had got blisters on his back and they had aggravated the trouble. My dad told literally he was lying among worms and his body was decaying. Once he breathed his last breath, the body started to decay immediately and it got worse. No one was even ready to lift his body. Worst being his wife had left him to die days back. No last rituals were performed. Simply they carried him to the cremation ground and cremated him within hours of his last breath. It seems they were not able to even carry him. the just lifted him along with the carpet on which he was lying.

Every smoker, I wish you to think yourself in this position whenever you light a cigarette. Smoking - just think why you do that. Is that a necessity. Think about your sufferings which are waiting. The status of your family. Tell your friends who smoke, about this.

Its not advice but a concern that you should live a healthy and peaceful life.