Dr Copa

I could not help but notice after we moved to Virginia, how many members of my wife’s family smoke cigarettes. Her sister, her brothers, her nephews and one of her neices all smoke. This was kind of a shock to me because I don’t have any family members that smoke. My parents used to smoke, but my father died of Lung cancer a long time ago, and my mother quit smoking about fifteen years ago.

Back when my father got his Lung cancer diagnosis from his doctors, he chose to hide the fact that he had cancer. We did not know what the Lung cancer symptoms were, and he was pretty good at hiding them from us. He was afraid of participating in any kind of Lung cancer treatment. He had heard that the Lung cancer surgery and following treatments such as radiation and chemotherapy would make him feel so bad that he’d wish he was dead. He also knew that meant he had to quit smoking cigarrettes, and he decided he’d rather simply die from cancer than quit smoking and go through the surgery and treatments.

When he finally admitted to us that he was sick and went to the hospital, he was dead in about two weeks. That was the first time we knew that he even had cancer! We were shocked and dismayed. It was a terrible time in my life, and I really wish that my in-laws would quit smoking because I don’t want any of them to get cancer and put their families through the grief that my family went through.