Sitrep

To recap, I was ill over New Year, rushed into A & E on the night of January 3rd, and sent home full to the gunnels with antibiotics and steroids. I finished the pills last Saturday, January 10th.

I was back at my GP’s this morning. I’m still not right. Still coughing up crap, still tired, lacking energy, and he’s prescribed another course of antibiotics to get rid of the residual infection. Hopefully, by this time next week, I should be fully recovered, or as near fully recovered as makes no difference.

Still, let’s look on the bright side. It was a cigarette which sent me to A & E. The ashtray above shows ash from that cigarette. It was the last one I tried to smoke. Eleven days down the line, and I haven’t touched a cigarette. It’s not as hard as I imagined, either. I don’t get cravings, probably because my breathing is still so poor that I couldn’t countenance a smoke. But I do get habitual reminders. After meals, it was habit to light a cigarette. The same can be said of crawling out of bed first thing on a morning, and there are other, similar “prompts” throughout the day.

They don’t bother me. I can handle them.

Am I an ex-smoker? Not yet. I’m still an ex-smoker in the making. Determined to get there, wherever “there” is, but still in that position where it would be so easy to slip back into my evil smoking ways. When I’m through that, then I’ll be an ex-smoker.