Approaching the 1 Year Mark !

Well, almost 1 year for me, 17 September will be one year since my last day as what i call a "Full time Smoker" (pack a day).

As a quick background - Sep 17th 2018 suffered an MI - The result of a 99% block of the LAD at age 41, told smoking was the probable cause due to the inflamation and plaque build up.

The journey for me to date has been one of hmmm, i would catergorise as "Great Difficulty" in the beginning. It took me a number of attempts where i was having one or two a week, then one or two a month, now nothing for the past 6 months ( I had 4 between Jan and March), how ever i will add i was vaping no-nic to get me through the harder times.

I honestly look back now and wonder how did i manage to get through that, the quit experience for me was rough, very rough! consisting of night sweats, heightened anxiety and panic attacks, depression, severe mood swings, headaches, nausea, poor concentration, heart palpitations + tingling sensations hands lips feet. This went on for a number of months but i can now say those nightmarish times have passed finally and i have come out the other end feeling really quite great, a feeling i originally thought i was being robbed of.

Now i can say i have better sense of taste, greater smell, better moods, still very slight anxiety and feeling of sadness at times, but this to is improving. I feel great in the sense i am no longer causing any arterial inflamation due to smoking, it feels good to breath easy and no longer cough or wheeze, the list goes on actually , and for me as a huge smoker i was a huge doubter not smoking would make me feel any better, but hey it has, it really has. I will also mention i am now $10,000 better off in the 11 months of cessation.

So yes, just wanted to share my experience and let people know it can be painfully hard to do and may even hurt, but to my surprise there is the rewarding outcome i am now experiencing.