Our smoking weather

Debra L. Glasser, M.D.

PHOTO BY GLORIA TOWNE | ALL AROUND TOWNE PHOTOGRAPHY

This weekend we were warned of poor air quality due to forest fire smoke migrating to us from fires in the eastern parts of the state.

What can we do about it? We 'can't stop it, but we do have options of what to do during this time, including:

• Stay inside and minimize risk to our health by breathing that smoke and particulates into our lungs.
• Choose different activities than we might have planned.
• Leave the area. For some of us, smoke exposure is entirely intolerable. Others (e.g., with severe asthma and emphysema, or COPD) will suffer more than they usually do.
• Or we can hold fast to our plans, take a calculated risk and feel some discomfort that we otherwise would not.

We can be grateful this summer that we were spared forest fire smoke more than in some of the previous years, our homes are not at risk like those near the fires and this is something we don't deal with all the time.

As humans in Olympia right now, we have choices no matter how we feel about the situation -- don't like, feel sad about the forests, or don't care a lick.

Smokers have choices, too.

These times have me musing about smokers. They live in a perpetual air quality alert. What can they do?

My last assignment as a physician was in home health hospice. The patients we admitted and cared for with COPD (chronic obstructive lung disease – used to be called emphysema and chronic bronchitis) were some of the youngest hospice patients dying of chronic disease, mostly ranging in age from 50s to early 70s. All were smokers, some actively, including one who caused a fire in his home and severely burnt his face smoking while using his oxygen. They were all on oxygen.

As a grateful never-smoker (grateful because I observed tobacco addiction to be the toughest one to shake), I can assure you that being unable to breathe is a terrifying experience.

This I do know personally, having had asthma since I was 12. Professionally I can tell you that being unable to breathe is one of a handful of miserable ways to die.

Like the rest of us living in this temporary air quality alert, smokers, too, have choices – including the ones we have. Some 'don't want to quit. That is their choice. 'Let's hope they 'don't expose too many people to their secondary smoke (also a health risk).

Short of quitting, let's hope they can stop guilting themselves and that everyone else stops guilting and pressuring them. Tobacco offers them something they cannot access in other ways. We all take risks; this is theirs. Let the smokers have peace with their choice.

The magic of numbers for those who would quit

However, if you are a smoker and want to quit but have failed - no worry! That is normal! You are normal! Studies show that for most smokers it takes many tries and failures (up to eight or more), and after your own magical number of tries: voila! You succeed. Keep trying if this is what you want.

When you quit, you will add years to your life and please yourself and everyone who cares about you. You will feel better as soon as you clear out all the mucous in your lungs that was stuck because the tobacco smoke was causing the little hairs that move out the mucous (medically called cilia) to malfunction.

Welcome to the non-smoker group who receive only temporary air quality alerts!

Make your choices and, personally, I hope you don’t choose to run a marathon this weekend!

If you choose to explore quitting, the State of Washington has several resources for you; many are personalized, and most are free. How to reach them? Your choices:

• Visit the Quitline.com website.
• Call the Quitline 1-800-QUITNOW (1.800.784.8669)
• Text READY to 200-400

Debra Glasser, M.D., is a retired internal medicine physician who lives in Olympia. She enjoys outdoor hobbies in our mostly temperate weather.