Lessons Learned

Below is an article from our quarterly newsletter for the month of May, written by Dr. Shuler.

Bud Shuler, MD, FACS

    My father-in-law is a great man, and not just because he is the father of my awesomely talented wife.  He is however a stubborn “old fart.”  Raised in central Colombia, he is the epitome of an ungracefully aging Hispanic senior.  He doesn’t, like many of us, want to give in to Father Time and the limitations each additional day bring.  He also is “rather” set in his ways.  Until six years ago, he was active, enjoying the newly found freedom of retirement, and doting on his three grandchildren.  He had planned well for retirement, sacrificing as Dave Ramsey says, “living like no one else, so that he could live like no one else” during retirement.  He did have a darker side.  He refused to stop smoking, despite the pleas of his children to do so.  His rather macabre opinion that he planned to “just die of a massive heart attack and be gone,” epitomizes the misunderstanding of many smokers.  That is until March  23rd, 2005, when he arose from bed, only to collapse in a heap on the floor.  He had just suffered a stroke.

   He couldn’t move his right side, couldn’t speak, and lost control of his bladder function.  Oh, he knew what he wanted to say, but he could only grunt.  His leg and shoulder he fell on hurt badly, but he couldn’t tell anyone.  If it wasn’t for the dull thud as he crumpled onto the floor, my mother-in-law would have found him the next morning.  To a stoic, self sufficient, confident gentleman, he had entered hell on earth, completely coherent, feeling pain, and unable to move or communicate to those in this world.  But he could pray, and he got to know his Maker well over the next few hours.  Fortunately the blood flow was restored to his brain and his symptoms resolved, but not before he realized the error of a lifetime.  There was nothing he could go back in his life and change, but there was something he could do from that day forward.  Stop smoking.  He didn’t do it for his family per say.  He didn’t think about his wife, children, and grandchildren visiting him in a nursing home, or the extensive care that would be needed to sustain his life.  He didn’t think about the sacrifice of time and energy, or the mourning his family would endure.  No, at that moment, lying in a hospital bed staring at the ceiling, he was coming to terms with his future.  The immediate driving force to stop smoking was selfishly motivated.  He didn’t want to “live” the rest of his life on earth, in the “hell” he had just experienced.

   So imagine yourself, smoking your cigarette one moment, the next, helpless but aware of all that it around you.  My father-in-law described the event as the most vulnerable he had ever felt in his life… pain, fear, humiliation, uncontrollable helplessness with nowhere to flee.  There was no escape, but by God’s mercy. 

   You have a choice.  You alone can change your future, and your family’s. Stop smoking today and avoid a stroke tomorrow.