The Hancock-Henderson Quill, Inc.
by Dessa Rodeffer, Quill Publisher
Lawrence Johnson is a man who likes to do things for others. He has been serving on the La Harpe School Board, the La Harpe Lions Club, the La Harpe Masonic Lodge, and is usually found right in the middle of community service events with his sleeves rolled up.
I guess that is why, Lawrence asked The Quill if he could tell about the damage smoking has done to him, because he cares about people.
Because of his years of heavy smoking, Lawrence is suffering from lack of breath, enduring a slow death from damaged lungs with a condition called Emphysema.
Emphysema is not curable-the fourth largest cause of mortality in the US, according to the Emphysema Foundation.
When Lawrence first saw Dr. Todd many years ago, he was told to get rid of the cigarettes or he would die a slow painful suffocating death from Emphysema. Sometimes, you just feel like you can beat the odds and bad things won't happen to you, and sometimes you just don't like others who seem to know it all, telling you what to do, even if it is for your own good.
It wasn't until too late that Lawrence heeded Dr. Todd's warnings and threw away the cigarettes. He has found, the doctor was right.
"I thought I could quit at my own choosing before there was any problem. But, when I quit it was too late, the damaged lung was unrepairable."
I have two sons who are smokers and I'd give anything if they'd quit!" The trouble is, smoking is an addiction and it's hard to break, Lawrence said.
"In my youth, the dangers of smoking weren't talked about like they are today. There were no warnings on cigarettes," Lawrence said. "
In fact, doctors even advised smoking if you were nervous to calm your nerves. "Smoking looks cool. Kids wear T-shirts advertising tobacco. It makes them feel more adult and grown up."
"My dad smoked and I would swipe his cigarettes. I would even sneak his tobacco and roll it in newspaper and smoke it. By the time I was in high school I was smoking regularly. By the time I was an adult I was smoking three packages a day."
It was in 1973-74 that Lawrence got his first warning from doctors that if he didn't quit he would die a terrible death.
"My wife and I were both smoking so much that two times a year all the walls and ceilings and curtains in our home would have to be washed. It was amazing the amount of yellow stain."
Lawrence drove a semi for a living and would open a pack every three hours. "I couldn't lay a cigarette down until I had gotten all the smoke out of it."
Lawrence remembers a wake-up call on December 12, 1985.
"I came home and I was going to my son's school play. I didn't feel good. I sat there, but finally I fell asleep. I woke up in the night choking - suffocating and I couldn't breath and Rose drove me to the hospital. I stayed there over a week until I was stabilized. They gave him oxygen and treatments.
For about four months after Lawrence returned home, he would have a 2 to 3 degree fever every time he left the house.
Ten years later, December 11, 1995 Lawrence was suffering so much that he went to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, and underwent bilateral lung reduction surgery, a surgery they wouldn't do around here due to his age.
They took a portion from the center of each lung, and then sewed them back together. Then the thin strong lining of a cow's heart was wrapped around each lung to hold it together because the lung is one organ that does not repair itself. The operation is why he is still alive today.
"Before the operation I couldn't climb steps without stopping. I returned in 3 months after the surgery and was taking 3 steps at a time without stopping. I felt so good I went back to work driving a truck."
Lawrence thinks that was a mistake. The diesel fumes and the foundry dust, and pollution, known to be bad on the lungs, put him back into the same condition as before surgery.
"Gradually, I am getting worse," Lawrence says, explaining that the lungs in their struggle for oxygen, enlarge until it pushes against the diaphragm making breathing difficult. At the same time, it causes stress on the heart.
Now Lawrence has only 10 percent of his lungs left and must continually use oxygen to breath. This carries him through four hours before he must return home for a 15 minute Nebulizer treatment to continue breathing. If he doesn't, it is like someone is putting a pillow over his face.
Recently he went five hours before returning home and collapsed in his entry, struggling to breath and to reach his Nebulizer.
A Concentrator makes oxygen out of air which he uses through the night to breath.
"I get winded in doing the least little thing. A five minute activity takes thirty minutes," he said, "because every exertion like bending a finger, uses oxygen."
"I WANT TO TELL THE KIDS, if I won $50 million or $100 million dollars, I would gladly forfeit all that cash, even if I never had a penny, so a kid would never have to go through this. Smoking is one of the most legal health hazards there is."
"Kids are going to act like their parents and pick up their hazards.
"I smoked 35-40 years. Smoking is terribly hard to break. I began having problems in 1975 and quit in 1981. But the damage was already done, and you can't repair the lungs.
"There are kids that don't smoke but chew thinking it is no problem. But at Mayo Clinic there was a young man with his whole lower jaw gone to cancer from chewing tobacco.
"You may think there are all sorts of transplants, but they are mainly heart, liver, and kidney transplants. They only do a lungs and heart transplant together. They are rare after 59 due to the risk. There is also the need for anti-rejection medications for life.
Thousands are on the list for a lung-heart transplant with only a few donors available, therefore, only a few of those waiting get them.
Lawrence was luckier than many. Dr. Todd had told him he wouldn't live past 69 and because he was over 59 they wouldn't do the lung reduction surgery, but he found Mayo's would do the surgery. He is now 70.
Lawrence said that it is also very stressful on the heart when you are struggling for oxygen. He had 3 stents installed in his heart in 1999 after suffering a heart attack in Tennessee while driving his semi, also the result of smoking.
"My nephew quit smoking after he visited and seen how awful it has affected me. Then, my youngest brother threw his cigarettes out the window after he saw me.
"I hope and pray my two sons age 31, and 35, quit," he said, "and I hope my grandchildren never start."
"If any child would read this and it would keep them from smoking due to my condition maybe I could see something good coming out of something so bad."
"I always thought I would quit before it gets too bad, but once the damage is done it is too late. I wish I could talk to the school kids, but I am struggling so bad now.
"I would tell them, they may think it looks cool like my son thought when he saw someone blowing smoke rings, but on the inside, it is doing a lot of ugly things. I absolutely hate it.
My wife, a hairdresser in Terre Haute with the Country Clip & Curl quit smoking in 1982, but it was a struggle. I quit in 1981 but I craved them for 3 or 4 months and whenever I was upset, or happy, or worried. They are a terrible crutch. You convince yourself you can not live without them, but you can. My wife and I both hate them now.
Lawrence and Rose moved to Terre Haute from West Burlington, Iowa in 1988 and their youngest son Jeff graduated from La Harpe High School. When he finishes his final term on the La Harpe school board he will have served close to 15 years. He has served as President of the board, as well as President of the Lions Club and Grand Master of the Masonic Lodge.
""It is hard to quit smoking and I try not to preach about it because you have to be ready:it is tough to quit.
"But I especially want to warn the kids not to start. It is so much easier and safer.
"We do not allow smoking in my wife's beauty shop, in our home, or in our automobile. My lungs could not tolerate it. I do love people, however, and I hate to see such a crazy thing do so much damage to them."
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Lawrence Johnson warns others not to smoke as he holds his constant companion, his oxygen tank, in his lap. He says it is the cost of ignoring warnings against smoking. |