To be so stressed

[pandarific]

My dad has smoked since he was 15, he is now 58, his dad died of emphysema.

He has had a smokers cough, the kind where you constantly clear your throat, for over 6 years. I have told him. My mother has told him. My sister has told him.

It is bad this xmas as he has a cold. Under sufferance, he is going to the gp tomorrow and I'm so stressed. chronic cough + smoking = copd best case, lung cancer worst, right?

He also has a bad back and is in pain from this, and I am now imagining metastasises in his bones.

I can't sleep, I'm trying to read. I've had an awful Christmas already due to sister issues and on top of it a row with my mother tonight. I know this post is all very me me me, but I feel like my head is going to explode. I want to go to the docs tomorrow with them, because I don't trust them not to minimise/lie if it's bad.

He and I are also supposed to be going on holiday flying out 31st Jan - obviously not important in itself but adding to head-explodey feeling.

I don't know, I'm just so worried.

Pandarific I can tell you are worried, given it's 3am! They won't give a diagnosis though tomorrow, all that will happen is he will go to the drs, tell them about the cough, and he'll get referred to have further examinations of his chest/other parts of him.

Try not to worry now, it won't change anything at this time in the morning, and there won't be an answer tomorrow anyway- there won't be anything to lie about as nothing will be decided then.

best case is he has a cough

so i would chill out and stop imagining the worst

Obviously there are no guarantees but my dad was the same, constant smokers cough, really poorly and sounded awful when he had a cold, used to wake himself up at night coughing and struggling to breathe and had a bad back and other aches and pains. I'll be honest I was pretty convinced he would end up with COPD, emphysema and/or lung cancer sooner or later. He'd smoked for over 50 years until I bought him an ecig the birthday before last, he hasn't had a fag since and I'm amazed at the difference in his health. He doesn't cough at all now, has just had a cold (first one since he stopped smoking I think) and has got over it in a couple of days without it turning into a cough or chest infection where it would have taken him a week to chuck off the cold and a lot longer to be over the cough when he was still smoking. I honestly thought the damage he'd done by smoking was irreparable, that even if he quit it probably wouldn't help at his age. I thought he was well on his way to serious lung problems of some sort but I was wrong so there is a chance you're worrying unnecessarily. There's obviously no way of knowing until he sees the Dr but if it's not bad news now might be a good time to see if he'll at least try to quit smoking, if he's worried enough to go to the docs he might be more open to it than he normally would be. Ecigs aren't for everyone but worth a try if he won't consider other methods, no one knows for sure the long term risks as they're too new but they must be better than smoking if my dad's anything to go by so a risk worth taking maybe? I would advise you go to a proper vape shop and get them to recommend a starter kit based on how much and what kind of tobacco he smokes rather than buying cheap stuff from a market or corner shop, you'll be looking at about £25-£30 for something decent. Will be keeping my fingers crossed he gets on ok tomorrow, let us know if you can. Oh and my dad still has a bad back and aches and pains btw, think that's more to do with being 60 odd than anything smoking related so that's not necessarily anything to worry about either. Hope you manage to get some sleep

to you all. I'll try to relax.

I also wondered if he could switch to an e-cig, there was a small study came out the other day that showed chest and breathing improvements in people with COPD and other lung conditions.

Could you talk with him about it? Buy him one?

I did give him mine (and it's a nice one too) but he doesn't really use it. I'll talk to him again about it - I think he's not going to the doctors any more. I'll talk to him again when we're on holiday.