That paralyzing thing called smoking.

I used to smoke. I loved it. I still do. I still smoke every now and again. Never around my children, hell, seldom at home...but I indulge. More often than not, I bum a smoke from a student at school. And it is DELICIOUS. Like chocolate cake...only better, because I won't get fat from it.

But I might get dead...so - alas...I have to quit for real. Probably. Okay, maybe not. I'll probably always be the woman bumming a smoke from a stranger on a bad day. But my avid anti-smoker husband and my dear friend who lost a grandparent to lung cancer don't shame me and so I don't expect you to either, dear reader. What I DO expect from you is that you read on.

In our respiratory tract are cells, teeny, tiny little cells that secrete mucous and have teeny tiny little arms called cilia. These cilia are designed to beat, like fingers waving all in one direction - up....up.....up.......wave.....wave.....wave....
Their function is to catch all the foreign matter we breathe in every day, trap it in the mucous, then push it back up to our mouth through coughing so that we can swallow it and all those nasties can be digested. Harmless. Effective. Sick.

"What does this have to do with anything?"

It so happens that those delicious cigarettes do something pretty ugly to the cilia in the respiratory tract: they paralyze them. Specifically, for several hours. And over time, the chemicals in the smoke destroy the cilia all together.

"So what? I have more."

True, you do. But not for long. Follow me: The average smoker has a cigarette every hour or so - each one of those cigarettes paralyzes quite a few cilia for several hours. This nasty cycle continues for the whole day until the smoker decides it's time for bed. The cilia get a break from all the chemicals (assuming the smoker doesn't smoke in his/her bedroom) and they start to work again....what happens?!? Well, all the particulates, mucous, and general gunk that has been inhaled all day long gets pushed back up to the top of the respiratory tract where it waits for the person to awaken. Guess what happens then??? Smoker's cough!! That's right. You've recovered just enough to get some of that stuff up. Let me ask you, what happens when your cilia can't recover any more? Your cells won't regenerate forever, folks. And when that happens, and make no mistake, it will....that's COPD and emphysema. No bueno.

So do yourself a favor and quit - or at least cut back. Your blood pressure and your teeny tiny friends in your lungs will thank you.

XOXO