friday

WARNING: i'm probably about to tick off a lot of ppl -- so if ur a smoker and don't want to get ticked off -- stop reading.
its friday and i'm sick. i've been sick for three days. right now the coughing is bothering me more than anything. i haven't been sick this much since -- well for at least 10 years. if not more. i used to get sick like this when i was a kid and my dad was smoking. then we discovered i was allergic to tobacco. he had to stop smoking.
so last december, we had a smoker move in next door. she signed a no-smoking lease and the whole complex is supposed to go non-smoking this coming january -- but she's smoking in the apt. ask me how i know -- because the smoke is creeping into my apt. how is that possible?? well the apt. were built on a slab and over the years the buildings have shifted and now any place where its supposed to be connected to the slab it isn't - so the smoke comes in because its no longer connected. so like at the bottom of my stairs and the downstairs closets. its really bad. the neighbor on the other side of the smoker is having the same issue and in some respects its worse for her because she's an ex-smoker. so the smell is making her sick to her stomach. i have air purifiers running in all of the rooms of my house (four of them) and it costs me a bundle to buy the filters for them, but i think if i didn't have them running, i'd be worse off than i am.
for years i told my kids about the dangers of smoking. of course whenever i would take my kids to get their dad at work (the hospital) they would see smokers outside and ask -- well if smoking is so bad for u how come doctors and nurses still do it. good question. now my son smokes a pipe. its gross -- thankfully he doesn't do it around me. of course, he'd land me in the hospital with an asthma attack if he did. i just don't know what got him started and i wish he'd quit.
i had an aunt who never smoked a day in her life, but she died a horrible death from lung cancer. her brother (my dad) was by her side for most of the last few months of her life and told me how awful it was watching her struggling, crying out from the pain, struggling to breathe, gasping for air. how did she get lung cancer if she never smoked -- she lived with a smoker. her husband probably smoked two packs a day. u could hear it in his voice when he talked.
the neighbor's voice is like that -- all craggy. she's quite proud of the fact that she's smoked for 40 years and has no intention of quitting. i don't care what smokers do to themselves -- but i care a lot about what they do to others. the neighbor has her daughter and her granddaughter (2 yo) living with her. does she not care about their health -- esp. the granddaughter?? when we had a residents' meeting a while ago to discuss going smoke free, she let it be known that she wasn't about to quit. but she's not smoking outside either -- which is what they r supposed to do. now that the weather is getting colder i kinda doubt she will, which means more smoke will come into my apt. and i'll probably be sick a lot. ask me if i like that idea?? last winter it wasn't as big a deal because i was working outside the home most of the time -- and when i came home i would air out the apt. but now i'm home all the time and we're really wasting energy if we have doors and windows open and heat on. so i turn the heat off and then i'm cold.
the other issue that has come up -- and part of the reason the complex decided to go smoke-free -- is that ppl have been caught smoking in their bedrooms -- with cigarette burns on the mattresses, etc. its like a fire waiting to happen. ppl have said i should just move. it should be so easy. it isn't. smokers think they don't hurt anyone but themselves -- but they r wrong and they need to adjust their tunnel vision and see how their self-gratification is inflicting harm on others. this woman doesn't care about the health of her own family, i doubt that she'd quit for my health.
at any rate, i guess for now i'll have to put up with the fact that for the third time in as many months i'm sick.