Dear Smoker Me

Dear Smoker Me,

Remember this feeling, remember the pain in the upper left part of your chest. 

Remember that you felt almost chocking. 

That your bronchi were very tight. 

Remember how worried you were that this might turn into one of the daily patients presented to you with a malignant lesion. Until the moment that you are writing this, you are not quite sure that you won’t have this pain again. But, you can stop thinking of the patient you had today. 

The patient that had a chance to quit smoking after being operated on. He got a warning first. He got a papilloma on his vocal cords. He got it excised and neglected the advice of the doctor to stay away from smoking. Less than a year, he was back with carcinoma this time. 

The most impressive part of the story is that having cancer was an expected outcome. The patient and his wife were waiting for the word cancer as if they were waiting for it to be said. 

I don’t want to be there. 

I got to do amendments.