I began smoking when I was 15 years old. Back in the day, smoking was a sign of being "grown up", of maturity, of being "with it". We all smoked. My parents, my sister, all of my friends, doctors, nurses, teachers, even professors smoked in the class room during lectures.
As the word began to leak out that smoking was a dangerous and deadly addiction, most of us, wrapped in the immortality of young adulthood, fended off the warnings with a firm belief that it just didn't apply to us.
We saw the photographs of black and shriveled lungs, but we were not short of breath, or coughing. Our blood pressure was well within normal range (mine, to this day, is 120 over 68), and we had no symptoms of heart problems. Indeed we all saw heart problems as a birth defect which we had escaped.
Meanwhile, a silent killer was building within our bodies. A killer with no symptoms until it was too late for simple cure. A killer that promised to dramatically change our lives, if we survive.
That killer is bladder cancer.
The only known correlations between external sources and the development of bladder cancer are working with dangerous chemicals, and many years of heavy smoking. We were not told.
We were not told that we would have no clue about what was happening to our bodies until we spotted blood in our urine, and by then it might well be too late. We were not told that bladder cancer is an aggressive, rapidly spreading growth that will pierce the bladder muscle, enter the lymph nodes, and migrate to the lungs. We were not told that the cancer often reaches advanced stages before it makes its presence known.
When I got my diagnosis, 3 months ago, I was still smoking around a pack of cigarettes a day. Neither my Primary Care doc, nor the original urologist I was sent to, mentioned any of the links between smoking and BC. It was not until I was sent to a Urologic Oncologist that the course of this insidious killer was laid out for me. So, OK. I'm on the patch (transdermal nicotine) to try and control the withdrawl and intermittent hysterics a "former smoker" fights. I plan to win this fight, after all these years, and never smoke again - but it's hard when I'm frightened, or in pain, or gearing up for the next bout of treatment.
To you I say:
Think it makes you "cool" to smoke? Imagine living with no bladder.
Think it's just too hard to stop? Ready to give up your urinary track, sexual performance, and freedom of motion for just one more smoke?
"Oh", you say, "That's somewhere in the far distant future! I'll deal with it when I get there."
You have no idea how close that future is. Or how hard it will be to "deal" with the life changes required, if you survive.
Stop smoking. Stop right now. This is your last cigarette. Throw out the unsmoked pack. Hide the ashtrays. Toss the lighters, matches, and paraphenalia we acquire in support of our habit.
Save your life. Save the life of a loved one. Tell them about the killer cancer that grows in their guts without symptoms, while they cheerfully delude themselves into a belief that the warnings do not apply to them.