Not to sound too much like a heartless dick (i start all of my threads this way).....

A coworkers husband is now in the hospital. He is about 62 years old, is about 5'8" and was 275lbs going in... smoked....(was already on blood pressure, cholestoral and diabetes shit).....

His heart had a zillion blockages, so that was the first $75k+ to open as many as they could.... he also has cancer....and for whatever reason they had to give him blood.

I have asked this lady at least 20 times to donate blood with me, take smoking cessation classes, etc...... She smokes and eats greasy frito's all the time (apparently the same as him)....she has never even considered donating blood or stopping the cigs.....

Why do people expect someone to save them if they are the main cause? This guy is probably at $150k for these past 3 weeks. For the past 5-10-20 years he didn't give two shits about his life...now he wants everyone to save him.

It would be different if he was exercising, eating normal, normal weight and something bad happened.... at least he would have cared about himself enough to make some effort.......

Luckily he isn't on our insurance, but a different co-worker just got her husband out of the hospital (she smokes, doesn't exercise, etc...) after a 2 week stay for all kinds of shit. So I will get to pay for that with increased premiums out of my paycheck...

 

Welcome to the American way. I've never seen such an incredible sense of entitlement. It's sickening.

 

Scot:

I appreciate your opinion as an X-Smoker and have been very over weight (212 lbs @ 5'6") I can understand your point of view.

Next month I will have quit for 1 yr. (I bought my C6 as a present to myself when I quit). This was the hardest thing I have ever done. I smoked for 40 yrs. I gave it up not for health reasons but for cost and that it was a pain in the butt (pardon the expression) to find a place you were allowed to smoke. If you have not smoked you have a very hard time understanding how ingrained it is into your life and that is totally apart from the physical withdrawl aspects which is a whole nother ball of wax.

As far as the weight loss (now at 165 not great but better) I ddn't want to buy a new wardrobe. I did any how as waist size went from a 36 to 32.

I now jog 3.2 miles (your basis 5K) 3 X / wk. I cannot truly say I feel that much better but I know in the long run it will be good.

Pardon the rambling above but what I am trying to say is that until you reach a decision point in your life nothing is going to change your habits. It is truly not a sense of entitlement.

Dan

 

Dan...that is awesome!!!!!! 5'6" and 165 sounds pretty good. what are you shooting for? It is funny how exercise actually gives you more energy.... I would hate just sitting on a couch like my neighbors eating dorito's.....

keep up the work so you can keep the vette.

Luckily for my mom she got a second chance.... smoked until the day she was 50...had a medium heart attack and has not smoked since. She is now 65 and goes to Yoga, walks, eats right and is probably a few pounds overweight but not at all FAT.... she may be 135lbs and is 5'3" or so...... pretty good for a 65 year old.

I wonder if people think about where that blood came from? The fact that I have asked several times to just about every office person and they all laugh and decline......but they sure as hell won't pass it up if they need it.

 

[QUOTE=Scot,Oct 9 2006, 03:06 PM] I wonder if people think about where that blood came from?

 

this country NEEDS obese people, chronic smokers, and people with medical ailments due to poor life habbits. otherwise, our economy will take a servere hit, and there will be less spending money going around, and a lot of people will be out of jobs... so yeah, i'm glad there are overweight people and smokers in this world...

 

Not only is it digusting, it's also selfish as hell. Because of his choice in lifestyle, his family may soon have to deal with his death. Terrible.

People seem to tend to feel sorry for people who live overweight, smoking, etc and then have to deal with the consequenses. But if they hear of a crack head/alcoholic/whore who has made their own terrible choices and has to suffer health effects for it- no sympathy.

 

speaking of alcoholic...... appparently this same guy used to be an alchoholic but at least quit about 10 years ago.... so he did make 1 change...Like you said DCAK, the lady I work with is going through hell trying to get to the hospital, etc.... she will end up in the hospital herself soon..... their daughter is 30 years old.... I am sure it sucks for her.... but at least the daughter is thin and stays in good shape.... she has learned not to do what mom and dad did.

I have no idea how people can live like that...but that is due to me being brought up around sports / exercise and I just don't like to eat all that much....

I don't like paying for other people's laziness and poor health decisions... I almost never use our health insurance but it goes up 10-20-30% per year depending on how many tubby's stay for weeks at a time in the hospital..

 

Scott good on you for your outlook on life.

Last week the land line rang and I answered it (I don't answer phones to save the pope). They were taking a phone survey on smoking. She told me it would only be a few minutes. She sounded young and cute (I was mentaly undressing her, in my mind she was a spinner. In real life she was likely over 200 pounds). She asked what I thought about smokers. I said we need more of them. She wet herself, and began to bore me about their problems. I then asked her a question. I asked her if she knew how much money was spent in Formula One or Moto GP by tobacco companies? She did not know, I told her combined it was in the billions. I asked her without smokers where was this money going to come from?

She then told me a sob story of how many people die every year from smoking. I asked where she lived(wouldn't tell me, smart girl) but here in SoCal we have too much traffic anyway so if we lose a few that's a few less cars I have to pass on the freeway.

Can you believe that bltch hung up on me. Didn't even get a chance to ask her what color panties she was wearing, how rude.

 

scot, not sure if it's legal in your state, but can't you tell you're employees to get healthy or be fired? sounds extreme, but so does your opinion.

i agree that smoking sucks. i think drinking sucks. kills so many other people than the transgressors.