"I always knew that I shouldn’t smoke, that smoking could kill me but cigarettes were my best friend; the best friend you trust with your life and then when your back’s turned, they stab you in it!

I had many attempts to quit but as I didn’t show any of the common negative effects (I was able to do my aerobic exercise, I wasn’t ever breathless, I didn’t have a cough, my skin was better than average for my age and I could afford it), I always told myself that quitting was something I could ‘put off until another day’. Thankfully that day did come eventually; I picked my day to have my last cigarette and managed to become a non-smoker. I so missed my best friend and for almost five years I wanted them back in my life, until the day I was told that I had lung cancer. That day all my dreams of a reunion stopped dead.

My lung cancer treatment was swift, radical and extremely unpleasant however my outcome is better than most and at present I’m lung cancer-free, although I do have other serious lung issues which are smoking-related.

Simply:

If I hadn’t stopped smoking five years prior to my diagnosis, my lung cancer would have been more advanced and I wouldn’t have had my positive outcome.

If I hadn’t been a long-term aerobic exerciser I wouldn’t have recovered as I did after my lung lobectomy.

And, if I hadn’t smoked in the first instance, well, I wouldn’t be writing this today."