[sci.med] When the World is Your Ashtray

mberkley@watdcsu.UUCP (J.M.Berkley - Computing Services) (10/19/86)

In article <1196@cybvax0.UUCP> mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz) writes:
>A detail was left out of the description of Hospice brand cigarettes.
>They come in two varieties: one for normally dying patients, and the other
>for those dying in oxygen tents.
>
>(My maternal grandmother died of emphysema in an oxygen tent: she probably
>would have smoked there if she could have.)

Sorry to change this tongue-in-cheek article to something more
serious, but my mother did smoke after she went onto oxygen.  She
continued to smoke for two or three years, a nasal canula in her nose
and a cigarette in her hand.

The only think that stopped her was that the health ministry in
British Columbia had a policy of cutting off all monetary support for
her oxygen if she was still going to smoke.  $450 a month convinced
her to quit smoking finally, after emphysema, ulcers, chronic
bronchitis, epilepsy (caused by a prolonged period of hypoxia - due to
decreased lung capacity), etc.  None of that convinced her.

Tell that to the young teenager who starts smoking because of
peer pressure.

Mike Berkley