I did the next worst thing: I lived through it vicariously.

Some days it seems like everyone around me has had massive health issues. The last three weeks have been hell, frankly. My wife has had multiple heart attacks, dozens of angina attacks, and a ventrical fibrulation. One of my closest friends, a gal named K, had her mother pass away a few days ago after a lung aneurism. And then yesterday.

When I got home from work yesterday, I got a call from Tex, my best friend, and evil twin brother (not really, but you get the idea). One of our best friends and old room-mates, Matthew Clark has had a heart attack, and they even had to put stents in. Coupled with Diabetes.

He is 34.

I am sick of this. I don’t want any more heart attacks, dammit. Enough is enough. No more death and ugliness. Gimme a two week break. Please.

Last night, Lynn slept all the way through the night for the first time since she had heart issues. Whoosh. All the way. I, however, kept waking up clutching my left arm. It didn’t hurt, tho. I just kept dreaming it was. Before you worry, dear readers: I also dreamt that I was waking up from heart surgery, and they were tisk, tisk’ing me about my smoking. One of the docs was a rabbit, whiskers peeking aound the surgical mask, and one of the nurses looked like Denise Richards except she had no hair and was tattooed all over her face. Not quite sure what that means.

Now, I am a generally healthy guy. I had some health issues when I was a young man, got some plastic plumbing. Like Lynn’s condition, it was kinda luck of the genetic dice. Someone rolled bad, and I got to spend a coupla summers hanging out in hospitals. Someday they will have to do it again, but not today. As a result of being sick so much when I was younger, I never let myself get *too* bad (except during the Dark Times---my period of alchoholism and addiction that lasted from about 86-90). I have been as heavy as 265, but am now around 205, and I can do a good 60 situps, and 40 or so pushups. I can’t run (shins hate running), but I can bike all day long on my 4speed. My cholesterol isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either. I drink a bit of coffee, but a LOT less than I used to. The one bad thing I have going is smoking.

I have a love affair with the cigarette. I adore them. They got me sober. They kept me sober. I used to see them as my LINK to sobriety (not anymore, thank heavens). They were my constant companion. My Skinny Little Friends.

But its time to sever my affair.

End it.

Abruptly.

No goodbye note.

After last night’s tossing and turning and waking up *afraid*, I can no longer afford to smoke. This is, as they say, the end of the line.

So this morning, I smoked the ones on the porch. My usual morning routine. I stopped and thought about it. I felt horrible. I felt really right. I decided that there is no better time than the present.

I stopped.

So I went in, took a 2000mg dose of vitamin C, my megavitamins and some milk thistle (to prevent the inevitable acne breakouts), and then swapped out all my old jackets for clean, non-stinky ones. I grabbed a pack of gum, and it will be my friend until tonight when I take some Tylenol PM and pass out in a hazy stupor.

I’ll be cranky for a couple of days. I might gain 20 pounds, but I can live with that. I can’t live with more heart attacks.

Especially my own.

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