Saint Valentin.

14th February 2010 -

Weeeell, todays been interesting, had a pretty crappy day at school (n) but then had a good time in town with my friend Carley after school :) we went to Greggs and got something to eat and then went to Costa for a hot chocolate, a bun and a chat :) it was really nice! :D.

I finished my english coursework #no.1 and so I thought I'd put it on here for you all to read (by 'all' I mean the one person who actually looks at my blog) seen as though I can't think of anything exciting to put :( so here you go.. - btw its a bit rubbish as its just a draft -

People who smoke think that all the health risks are just to scare you into quitting, and people who don't smoke know that the health risks are facts. I for one know this because I've seen it happen twice, to my grandma and my dad. My grandma started smoking when she was young and my dad has smoked for as long as I can remember, but due to their lack of willpower to quit, they now both have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) this is caused by damage to the lungs, usually caused by smoking - just one of the many things caused by smoking. COPD usually effects people aged 35 or over and approximately 835, 000 people have been diagnosed with it in the UK alone, although it's been known for people to actually be living with COPD because they usually think the symptoms are due to an ordinary cough, but once COPD has arrived, there's no getting rid of it, and this usually leads to the use of an inhaler.

The signs of COPD are similar to a normal 'smokers' cough, as the symptoms are coughing, being short of breath, coughing up phlegm on a regular basis and the chest infections, although other areas of the body can also be infected including weight loss, tiredness and swelling. And so as you can expect, this makes it very difficult to notice when somebody actually has COPD, so it's usually better. If you notice yourself or somebody else who has a bad cough and it isn't budging, then it may be worth going to the doctors to get it checked - like they say, better safe than sorry.

From my own experiences, I know what it's like to live with somebody who has COPD, and so I know how difficult it is to restrain from hitting them over the head with your laptop, but believe it or not it's illegal, plus the laptop could get damaged. So you may have to find other ways to get your point across, for me this included moaning to my dad at every opportunity I could find. It also included hiding lighters and throwing packets of cigarettes in the bin without telling him.

Although my dad still smokes even though it's bad for him, I tried to understand why he smokes, usually people smoke due to stress - although it has been proven to increase stress levels rather than reduce them - another reason is peer pressure, and I have come to the conclusion that this is why my dad cannot stop smoking. He had two weeks off from work last Christmas to spend with me and the rest of my family, in this time he managed to stop smoking, but once he started going back to work after the holidays, he suddenly started smoking again. I have a theory that this is because he gets picked up and taken to work by his work friends, and when they are in the van, they tend to smoke a lot, and so I don't know for sure, but an ex-smoker being with a gang of current smokers must be hard to resist temptation, and so although I do get annoyed with why my dad cannot manage to quit smoking for the sake of his health, at least I can try and understand why he feels this way.

If your parents or any member of your family smoke and your worried about their health, then it may help just to sit down with them and talk to them about how you feel, it is an upsetting thing to know that somebody you care about is purposely damaging their body, but sometimes they don't realise just how much of an impact it has on other people. If you feel for whatever reason you cannot talk to this person face to face, then try hinting to them, or even write them a letter and leave it in a place that they will find it, at least then they know how you feel and so they can either choose to acknowledge it and try to quit, or they can ignore it and carry on smoking, either way you shouldn't give up on them and you shouldn't just ignore the fact that it's upsetting you.