by Emma Willey

Created on: August 30, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

A New Life Without Dependency
How I Stopped Smoking

Twenty-six years ago I was 61, in the prime of my life. My husband and I owned a small sign business and I was doing something I loved, designing and making signs. We cut letters out of Styrofoam with a hot wire machine, sanded and painted them, then installed them on businesses. Our sign business did very well, and I enjoyed the work, so much I couldn't wait to get to work every morning.

One morning about 6:00 o'clock I awoke with pains in my chest. The pains came and went with a rhythm much the same way I remembered labor pains much earlier in my life. I tried to ignore them, but they were recurring much too often. On the way to work that morning, I stopped at a clinic for a checkup, even though the pains had finally subsided. An electrocardiogram revealed nothing, but after giving the doctor my family history of heart disease, he made the diagnosis, "You are having some heart trouble." He gave me a prescription of nitroglycerin to put under my tongue if I had further pains. He
S8ad, "You must stop smoking."

At first I went through denial, and really didn't believe the doctor. The first thing I did after getting in my car, I lit up a cigarette to calm myself after hearing the disturbing news.

My doctor gave me some literature to read. According to the American Heart association, you are at risk for a heart attack or stroke if you have any of the following risk factors:

If you are a man over 45 or a woman over 65.
If your father or brother had a heart attack before the age of 55 or if your mother or sister had one before the age of 65 or if a close relative has had a stroke.
If your cholesterol level is 240 or higher.
If your blood pressure is 140/90 or higher.
If you get less than 30 minutes of physical activity every day.
If you are 20 pounds or more overweight.
If you have diabetes.

I fit into all of those risk factors except that I was a woman of 61, I wasn't overweight and I didn't have diabetes. Two of my brothers had heart attacks before the age of 55, my cholesterol level was over 300, and I was getting very little physical exercise every day. My mother died of a stroke several years before, and my father died with congestive heart failure. I became convinced that I was at very high risk for a heart attack.

The American Heart Association also listed the warning signs for a heart attack as follows:
Pressure, fullness, squeezing or pain in the center of the chest lasting more than a few minutes.
Pain

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