dealing with elderly parents and doctors
Didi cares for her elderly father who, like her, enjoys a smoke and believes it helped them both get through the recent death of her mom at 85 from heart disease.
"It wasn't so long ago that doctors actually recommended smoking to alleviate anxiety," says Didi. "My mom was a heavy smoker until the day she died and swore by it as a sanity saver."
"She was 85 when she died of heart disease and of course her new young doctor wanted to blame smoking for her death," sighs Didi, "but her time had come, her heart had worn out, and there was nothing we could do about it."
"Even if my mom had lung cancer and died from it she wouldn't have stopped smoking," says Didi. "She knew that without the calming effect of cigarettes she'd have gone crazy. As she always said, there are worse things to die from than lung cancer."
"I think that a lot of smokers are saving the health industry a lot of money by self-medicating with cigarettes," says Didi. "I know I am, and right now with dad's health deteriorating I need to smoke more than ever."
"He's being treated by the same young doctor that treated mom and he's fed up with being lectured on the evils of smoking every time he has to go for treatment," sighs Didi. "For God's sake, the poor man has prostate cancer not lung cancer and he's 88 years old."
"What keeps dad going is his zest for life but his mental health is being sorely tried by all this anti-smoking stuff."
"What sort of monster would deny a recently bereaved old man the consolation of a smoke?" asks Didi. "At his stage in life would the threat of lung cancer really matter to him? Of course not. It never has."
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