Years of puffing on her beloved cigarettes had ruined Maureen Hamilton's looks - but nothing could persuade her to quit. Not even being told she was dying. This 57-year old from Cambridge tells........
Most of you are thinking, "It'll never happen to me." I thought the same. Everyone does.
I know how hard it is to give up - I even smoked outside the hospital when I had emphysema.
I was diagnosed with the disease nine years ago and I've been bed-bound for four years, only kept alive by a ventilator that breathes for me. So, for nine years there have been no parties, eating out, holidays, or retail therapy. Puffing 20 a day has turned me into a wasted, ugly individual, totally reliant on other people. All because I loved smoking.
I started at 13. Growing up, smoking was glamorous. Film stars posed with a cigarette in their hand. I remember buying a single cigarette and smoking it at the cafe, hoping the boys would notice. By the time I started working it was 20 a day. Pregnant with a baby girl at 17, I married and broke up three years later and a year hence, started dating again.
I went out with a member of the Ferrari family.....foreign minister's son - great life.......went to Beirut....staying at a palatial residence.......servants and bodyguards........spent days by the sea.......chauffeur drove us.......beautiful mountains - and through it all I smoked.
Back from Israel, at the age of 28, I had the first indications of ill health. Suffering from pneumonia, doctors advised me to a hospital specialised in lung diseases - I was scared and refused.
21 years later, I was diagnosed with emphysema. The disease exhausted me. I'd come home from work and lie down for an hour but then forcibly went out for the evening. And still I didn't stop smoking.
Very ill, in 1997, flying back to Britain and shortly afterwards found blue and unconscious. Waking up in an intensive care ward, I put my hand to my throat and found a hole with a tube going in. Now I had no choice but to give up smoking.Even if I had wanted to carry on, I wouldn't have been able to - not with dragging an oxygen bottle with me.
Four years ago I went on a breathing machine full time - and i have got that until I die. My teeth are rotting because I can't get to the dentist. My nose is in a terrible state because it is the only airway now. I have suffocating lumps of mucus which my carers have to remove with forceps after every mealtime - and these carers who change my nappy and then ask, "Can I go for my cigarette break now?" The pressure of my breathing mask pushes the eyeball out of its socket and I get sores from lying in bed 24 hours a day.
My life is horrific - and giving up smoking is a struggle.
But smokers don't see people in hospital hooked up to machines dying slow, painful, undignified deaths and they should. My will is done and I have a place in Newmarket cemetery next to my mum.
I don't know when my time will come - I was told I had six months, seven years ago - but i do know that I have no dignity.And I wish I could go now. I have had two heart attacks and been resuscitated seven times. It would be a relief for it to end.
However much you may want that cigarette, I promise you, it's really not worth it.
I hope my story can stop even one person from smoking.
......I figured that such an exemplary form of inspiration should be e-preserved!
I was diagnosed with the disease nine years ago and I've been bed-bound for four years, only kept alive by a ventilator that breathes for me. So, for nine years there have been no parties, eating out, holidays, or retail therapy. Puffing 20 a day has turned me into a wasted, ugly individual, totally reliant on other people. All because I loved smoking.
I started at 13. Growing up, smoking was glamorous. Film stars posed with a cigarette in their hand. I remember buying a single cigarette and smoking it at the cafe, hoping the boys would notice. By the time I started working it was 20 a day. Pregnant with a baby girl at 17, I married and broke up three years later and a year hence, started dating again.
I went out with a member of the Ferrari family.....foreign minister's son - great life.......went to Beirut....staying at a palatial residence.......servants and bodyguards........spent days by the sea.......chauffeur drove us.......beautiful mountains - and through it all I smoked.
Back from Israel, at the age of 28, I had the first indications of ill health. Suffering from pneumonia, doctors advised me to a hospital specialised in lung diseases - I was scared and refused.
21 years later, I was diagnosed with emphysema. The disease exhausted me. I'd come home from work and lie down for an hour but then forcibly went out for the evening. And still I didn't stop smoking.
Very ill, in 1997, flying back to Britain and shortly afterwards found blue and unconscious. Waking up in an intensive care ward, I put my hand to my throat and found a hole with a tube going in. Now I had no choice but to give up smoking.Even if I had wanted to carry on, I wouldn't have been able to - not with dragging an oxygen bottle with me.
Four years ago I went on a breathing machine full time - and i have got that until I die. My teeth are rotting because I can't get to the dentist. My nose is in a terrible state because it is the only airway now. I have suffocating lumps of mucus which my carers have to remove with forceps after every mealtime - and these carers who change my nappy and then ask, "Can I go for my cigarette break now?" The pressure of my breathing mask pushes the eyeball out of its socket and I get sores from lying in bed 24 hours a day.
My life is horrific - and giving up smoking is a struggle.
But smokers don't see people in hospital hooked up to machines dying slow, painful, undignified deaths and they should. My will is done and I have a place in Newmarket cemetery next to my mum.
I don't know when my time will come - I was told I had six months, seven years ago - but i do know that I have no dignity.And I wish I could go now. I have had two heart attacks and been resuscitated seven times. It would be a relief for it to end.
However much you may want that cigarette, I promise you, it's really not worth it.
I hope my story can stop even one person from smoking.
......I figured that such an exemplary form of inspiration should be e-preserved!
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