let me tell you of my story…. my father was a smoker and quite aged 55 by then the damage was done and he had COPD over the next 20 years my father gradually had a slow and painful death… and with me being his only relative I spent the last 3 years looking tending and caring for him, from ringing the ambulance when he couldn’t breath to when he lost conscious cracked his head open from washing him and cooking to spending hours in a and e and then more days/ months in a ward, I lived with him as he couldn’t be left alone for long he was on oxygen all day and all night just so he could breath and this was all while he was mentally fine and very young minded so he knew what pain and misery he was going though. The last time he was in hospital he begged me to get him home he was so low and depressed ……. I brought my father home to die, it was the hardest thing I ever had to do was sit there day and night until he died.

Smoking was the cause if all this, over the years it damaged his wind pipe and lungs till only a quarter of his left lung worked but he felt fine prior to this but bit by bit the last 20 years of his life was controlled by it getting worse and worse taking a bit more of the man who had always looked after me away till he couldn’t do a thing for himself but then he didn’t just die he spent 3 years like this fully aware of everything that was happening.

Just because your ok jack many many people around the world are not and did you know the COPD is one of the largest killers in the uk and America and the majority of this is due to smoking.

I looked after my father while having a full time job … I slept little and for outside people it was very hard to comprehend my situation.

Smoking is up to you but would you want your children to look after you day and night to watch you die prematurely for something that you could have stopped, do you want to but them through the stress and pain of seeing all that, I love my father and I miss him every day but if he knew earlier on what smoking could do im sure he would of stop as he wouldn’t of wanted me to go though what I did, let alone his own suffering.

Lung cancer is not the only lung disease even though that is bad enough, COPD related disease are one of the biggest killers here in the UK and also in the US.

Though you say smokers know the dangers of it and it is people choice if they smoke or not, but what about the people who have to pick up the pieces when it does start to effect them.

Mt father stop smoking when I was about 10 years old and he always told me it was for me that he did, now im 30 I have a full time job and im also a full time carer for my father who has emphyzemia diagnosed 15 years ago and now in final stages.

I love my father and I hate seeing him go though this, he is on oxygen 24 hour a day, has aprox 20 tablets a day, has nebulizers , 3 different inhalers and BiPap machine at night to pull the carbondyoxide out of his body. This is all due to smoking.

I am the only family my father has, I want to help him as much as possible but would like to people to realise that smoking doesn’t just effect you and its not just your choice, I don’t have a choice to watch my father die of something that if he had all the information he might not of , I don’t have the choice to spend my nights sitting next to him trying to get him comfy and rested but he doesn’t sleep and in turn I don’t either and then I have to work all day. I don’t have the choice that I spend my time sat in a & e departments while they stabilise him to spend a week back in hospital, to be brought home and then we go through it all a week or two later. I don’t have the choice that when he was last in hospital he begged me to get him home that he wants to die in his own bed. Once more this has been going on for 5 years

Smoking affects everyone around you not just yourself maybe if they had a ad to show the people who have to care for you they might be more inclined to quit, lets face it we are all more bothered about our family and friends health then our own.