Not only do you and will you suffer from unhealthy and fully oxygenated blood cells, you also place your lungs in jeopardy by weakening the cells in your lungs and destroying the tissues and that alone will cause difficulty with anesthesiology during surgery.
This is nothing new to either smokers or non smokers, it is simply a fact..and a not so good one for the smoker. Not only are you in a position of addition, which is very difficult to fight, and probably will not be fought by you alone at this time Robin, as you do have increased stress with suffering ARD, BUT...your life depends on what choices and the type of help you secure in stopping the smoking in order to get the most highly skilled surgeon to help you through his a surgery that will offer you a better life..in fact, it will offer you a life period!!
Slow down in your thinking right now, relax and take it a step at a time. Maybe it does mean no surgery from Redan & Reich...can you blame them? You can take care of this part of your health...no need to panick, just look this over and get started on it if you want them to do your surgery! If you were in need of heart surgery, a transplant or anything of that caliber, you would have the same requirements...and the surgery planned for adhesions is just as important as any of the others as it means YOUR life and and future!! Most people that smoke take an offense and suffer not only guilt, but fear at how to stop it....especially when it means your life depends on it....do what you can to find a good source of medical intervention for helping you to quite, you have the ARD, nothing will change that short of surgery and nothing you do short of surgery will change that ARD...but YOU can take control and responsibility for the smoking as there is help for that and that help can be found and implemented by YOU...will it be easy, well, as easy or difficult as YOU make it, with the proper mind set and determination, Robin, you can do anything...and to stop smoking in order to give yourself a chance live without pain the rest of your life...well, that is all up to you!
To quite smoking is not a fight we all have to make in our quest to get well from adhesion disease, and who needs to fight that on top of adhesions, but in your case you do have that fight...and in the end, the news is good for you..your health and your life....one is in your hands and the other waits for you!
Best of luck my dear
Bev
>----- Original Message -----
From: Robin <rmasse2333@aol.com>
To: Multiple recipients of list ADHESIONS <adhesions@mail.medispecialty.com>
Sent: Friday, August 11, 2000 10:33 PM
Subject: Surgery & Smokers
> Are there others that smoke besides me? Dr Redan emailed me earlier & he
> told me "As you already know......No smokers...Your risk of adhesions
> returning is VERY High as this keeps oxygen from getting to the healing
> post-surgical tissues and almost certainly will result in a recurrent
> problem. Please try and quit ASAP." I have tried to quit several times
> before. I have never been told to quit for surgery, although I have
> been told to cut back as much as I could & take a breathing treatment
> the night before & the morning before surgery. This is adding more
> stress. Now I am much more scared & more frustrated. Now I will worry
> about whether or not I will be able to quit. What If I can't, does that
> mean I cant have surgery? Any advice would be appreciated.
> Thank you,
> Robin
>
> --
> Robin
>