Quote:
Originally Posted by pdurrant
One would expect that the latter is a major cause of the former.
|
No, apparently she was diagnosed in her early teens. However, her parents and doctor never told her. My grandmother took her out of school, because she was "terminally ill" (she wasn't). Until she met my father and moved out of her parents' house she was responsible for housekeeping and had a full time job aged 16.
She didn't find out she had the chronic bronchitis until her mid 30s, when it got worse and she went to the doctor (another one than she had when she lived at her parents) and found out. By then she already smoked a lot, but although the doctor advised her to quit she never did. I think it's her way of sticking up her middle finger to her parents and then doctor.
By now she doesn't just have chronic bronchitis, but also high blood pressure and athrosis. In the last couple of months she has started to smoke less, but I suspect she does so to save more quickly for a new iPad. And now she's got the respiratory infection she'll smoke more because it makes her cough less than when she doesn't smoke (or so she claims).