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Hospital Visitation: Inspiration from Suffering

by Greg Fisher

Boston, Massachusetts
United States

Hospital Visitation: After a short conversation with a hospital receptionist here in a Boston Hospital I was introduced to a suffering 51 year old man who had already lost his wife to lung cancer and was himself dying of Emphysema. It turned out that his wife had been smoking as a teenager and died at the age of 43 after 9 months in a hospital bed. Kenneth had been in the very bed I was visiting him at for 16 weeks. An oxygen tank as his side was his only life aid, without it he would die in mere hours. His breathing sounded like sandpaper on a chalk board. We didn't talk about smoking that much, he only wanted to talk about his grand kids and his only daughter who visits him daily and also suffers while watching his worsening condition. Kenneth died today, January 16, 2001, only months from his 52nd birthday. His suffering and even worse, his daughter who had to watch both of her parents taken by Cigarette Related Diseases suffered most. This was enough inspiration to make me quit cold turkey.