Quote:Just curious, how many people have you known who had lung cancer?  I'm 58 years old and I've known 2. One was my mother who died at 77 and the other was my mother-in-law who died at 87.

 

Regards..............the Chiefjag

 

My paternal grandfather had lung cancer, and died at age 65. He also had emphysema and was living with one of his lungs partially removed. I have one vivid memory of sitting between him and my dad in a car, and my grandfather asked my dad for a cigarette, My dad told him he wasn't supposed to be smoking. My grandfather's reply was "I didn't raise you to tell me no, boy." My dad was at least 30 at the time.  My grandfather died soon after suffering a coughing fit in the middle of an intersection of two country highways and a woman driving a Chrysler Imperial, distracted while looking for change she had dropped, T-boned my grandfather's Ford.

 

His eldest son, my uncle, had emphysema and heart disease when he died. A college football coach and larger than life figure, he was a shell of his former self as he pushed around an oxygen cannister during the last years of his life.

 

My maternal grandfather chain smoked Pall Mall reds (filterless) for years and quit cold turkey after receiving a diagnosis of emphysema a few years before his death. The partial pack of Pall Malls that was left when he quit remained with his Zippo lighter on the night table by his bed from the time he quit until his death.

 

A long time next door neighbor had emphysema as long as I knew him. When his doctor told him he had lung cancer, he drove from the medical facility at NAS Jax to the top of the Buckman Bridge, parked his car, got out and jumped into the river, taking his own life.

 

I come from an extended family of smokers. There are numerous cases of emphysema among my relatives and two more cases of lung cancer, one still surviving. I don't know either well enough to know how much or how longed they smoked, but I do know they did at some point.

 

Btw, I wasn't making a case that smoking less reduced your chances of getting cancer or emphysema.

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