Quitting Smoking

This is my second day of not smoking using the Nicoderm CQ patch and it is making me sick.  Yesterday I had it on my arm and my arm felt like I had a tourniquet around it with no circulation and severe pain.  I called the Pharmacist and he said to get that patch off of my arm; that I was having a severe allergic reaction to it.  He said it could be the adhesive or the drug that is used to deliver the nicotine that I could be allergic to.

I put a new patch on, but this time I put it on my back hoping that, maybe, this would work.  I don't care about the allergic reaction; I WANT TO STOP SMOKING!  So, today I am feeling icky and hope that I can do this.  I have smoked for over 20 years and have hated it all along.  I call myself the closet smoker!  I don't smoke in public, in my car, around anyone, or in restaurants.

I hate the smell on my hair, my clothes, just in general.  I know that many more doors will open up if I do stop smoking; like having more friends, you know, the ones that you really want to be friends with, but are so afraid that they will find out you smoke.

I'm not getting any younger and with the longs years of smoking it has taken its toll on me.  I have allergies and smoking just makes this worse.  I feel like I have a lump in my throat all of the time, I have no energy, and I am coughing up that green stuff.

I kind of had an eyeopener this week with my 9 year old.  She came home from school with this poster that she wanted to create for the "Don't Do Drugs" campaign and right in the center of the page was the "No Smoking" symbol.  I asked her what that was about and she told me they were learning about not doing drugs.  I asked her what kind of drugs were they talking about and she said "cigarettes".  She even asked me how to spell cigarettes, so she could put that on her poster.

I realize that nicotine is a drug, but cigarettes are legal.  I also asked her if she knew of other drugs that no one should do.  She said she didn't, so I proceeded to educate her.  Maybe she isn't old enough yet for this talk, but any opportunity I have to explain anything to her I take, because I didn't get talks from anyone when I was growing up, so I didn't know any better.

Why didn't they teach this stuff back when I was in school?  My life might have turned out differently.  Here I go to try and go through another day without a "cigarette".

Wish me luck!