conversations in a hospital #3

i still remember my very last cigarette. i can see it exactly.
i was sitting at the dining room table in our last apartment on the danforth, doing a dreaded roy care plan for a patient.
bob had quit a week before me.
i remember taking a drag and saying "this is it. my last cigarette ever."
i can feel the taste of the filter on my lips, the smoke entering my lungs.
and then i stubbed it out. i continued on with my assignment and i left the butt there in the ashtray in front of me, staring it down.
just me and the desire.
then, as i went to bed, i cleaned out the ashtray, threw out the rest of the pack...woke up the next day a new person, never to smoke again.

this picture was slowly fading from my mind but came back with vivid force as i sat helpless by my 85 year old patient while she hacked out a lung.
in between breaths she whispered "i" *cough* "have" *cough* "chronic" *cough* "bronchitis" *cough*
and emphysema. and a gangrenous foot that will have to be amputated from vascular disease related to congestive heart failure.
but she quit smoking a month ago.
pointing to her body she says "i'm not having this outfit again! it's broken".
was she ever a feisty one! so full of life and cackly laughter.
the 85 year old chain smoker you see sitting in the bingo hall or cursing obscenities at a slot machine.
still trying to pick up 25 year old residents.
and i wonder if i never stopped smoking, if i too would have a feisty demeanor, still laughing in the face of adversity.