Saving Billions

[digitS']

Bloomberg business magazine has a recent article about how the downturn in life expectancy is saving companies money in their pension plans. Yay! Or, something .

I have been checking with a few neighbors. One that I get along with great had to retire early because of cancer treatment. He made the effort to quit smoking after heart surgery a few years ago. Of course, I encouraged him but told him that I would say no more after his relapse. Now, lung cancer.

I spoke of another neighbor on TEG last year.

...I have a neighbor who I've learned has heart monitoring. I haven't seen him with a cigarette quite so often the last few days. There were winter days when he would show up on his porch 4 times each hour coughing, spitting and smoking cigarettes ...

He fell on the ice over last winter and had a heart attack. A family friend told me this week that he is "in a vegetative state." The entire family will move soon, 5 children from about 30 to 3 and his wife. They apparently don't even feel that there is a reason to stay close. He wasn't anywhere close to retirement age.

Two days ago I learned that another neighbor had died. I thought that I had just seen him a day or two before but he went suddenly. Lung/heart problems (COPD) but he would stop on his lawnmower and smoke, every time I saw him on that task. A study reported in the British medical journal Lancet said that for COPD patients "Stopping smoking decreases the risk of death by 18%."

Here is what I said not long ago about our relationship.

...
I got a wave from a neighbor recently. It was a wave just as he looked away. I've talked to him when he has been out doing yard work. He's always grumpy. I had the idea that the wave went with the mindset, "I hate this job. Ya know, I'm just duty-bound to do it."...

Retired military, he had just turned 70. The Bloomberg article says that in the US we had been on our way to seeing 50% of us who reached 65 living another 20 years. It could have been a worthy goal for these three ...

Steve
i warned you the other day that i was joining my dad in becoming an anti-smoking advocate

 

[dickiebird]

My Pop and I retired from the same company. He retired at age 62 and turned 97 this past July.
I retired in 1999 at age 54 and we both are still around!!!!
Do you think the co. we retired from ever expected to pay out on my Pop's retirement for more years than he worked.
They have paid me for almost 17 years and him for 35 yrs.

THANX RICH

 

[Collector]

I quit smoking over 5 years ago. Best thing I have ever done for my self. My MIL passed last august from copd after a lifetime of smoking. DW gave 24 hr care the last year and more it was painful to whatch her decline from it. My FIL passed suddenly in November of 2014 from heart condition caused from cigarette smoke, he also had copd. I asked my MIL to quit many times to add a little quality to her remaining time. One day she told me she was no going to quit, that was the last time I mentioned it. The last few months she only took the oxygen off to smoke, nicotine is a powerful poison.

 

[baymule]

Smoking is stupid. Got a neighbor whose husband begs her to quit, she coughs so hard she can't catch her breath. She'll never quit.

 

[journey11]

I quit smoking 11 years ago. I've got asthma now, but I don't know if the smoking caused it or if I would have had it anyway because it has only been bad for a few years now. I was never a heavy smoker. Just a half a pack a day. I will clobber my kids if they ever put one of those things to their lips!

My grandpa started smoking when he was 11. He's 84 now. It just caught up to him about a year or so ago. He's got a slow growing tumor in one lung and has COPD. Watching someone suffer trying to get their breath is an awful thing. That's one reason I think they shouldn't legalize pot. It is much harder on your lungs. If we're going to crack down on tobacco, we need to be consistent here. (Although I am not opposed to cannabis oil for medicinal use as I am aware of a few individuas it really helped--cancer, seizure disorders.)

 

[thistlebloom]

Smoking is stupid. Got a neighbor whose husband begs her to quit, she coughs so hard she can't catch her breath. She'll never quit.

Sadly they will quit, but it will be involuntary and too late to enjoy it.

My mil finally quit for the last time about 20 years ago. Her kids had begged her all their growing up years. She is riddled with bad health mostly from diabetes, but has reached 85. It's remarkable how resilient the human body can be and how it can heal to some extent if given a fighting chance.

 

[Nyboy]

 

[thistlebloom]

Give yourself a fighting chance Alex, it matters.

 

[digitS']

A friend recently got out of the hospital and a month of rehab.

About 6 weeks later, he was right back in the emergency room. He told me that if he had a choice of 10 minutes doing things "his way" or 35 more years watching his diet, etc. etc., he would take the 10 minutes. I guess that he might have been trying to forge a strong relationship with me, part of his age cohort.

I felt like asking him, "what do you have against young people?"

Steve

 

[PennyJo]

been out camping with bf for 4 days felt good to be back home own bed..
We quit smoking a year ago bad things if someone handed one to me I would smoke it
but will not stop to get any neither would he