The Daily Advocate by Mom

From one Momvocate to another. 

I wish we could do lunch and talk.

The world is full of concerned Moms. It's in our job description and many of us take that job very seriously. I've seen some of you on the news, watched you at Congressional hearings, have heard you testify before city council's, and have seen your social media posts. I watched the movie You Don't Know Nicotine and it taught me that there are 2 sides to every story. I learned a lot about your concerns from watching it. I could see the concern in your eyes and hear it in your voices. I know in the end we all want the same thing. We want our kids to be safe, healthy, and making good choices. We fear for their well being, their health, and even their lives. 

I'd like to share with you my story and why I'm a Momvocate. While many of you have stories about your kids that begin with vaping, my story starts with smoking and ends with vaping. I hope by the sharing of concerns and our stories we can find common ground to adress the issues that concern all of us.

 I come from a long line of people who smoke. My Dad smoked, was a veteran, and struggled with parenting skills. He didn't understand the line between discipline and abuse. It was a line that was crossed often. He didn't want a daughter and was not pleased with my birth. It was a blessing the day Mom kicked him out and the beatings stopped.

Mom's side of the family had issues, too, where boys were God and girls were trash. Mom tried to do better. Sometimes she succeeded, sometimes she failed. Learned behaviors are hard to unlearn. I grew up feeling unwanted and unworthy - 2 things I never want my child to feel.

My Grandpa (Mom's Dad) was my hero. In a world that I felt wasn't happy to have me here, I was his favorite. He made me feel special. I started smoking when I was 10. Not because I wanted to be cool and fit in, not because I wanted to be a rebel and break the rules. I started smoking because my Grandpa smoked and I loved and admired him so much, I was so grateful for his love and acceptance, I just wanted to be like him. 


Being a tomboy, I didn't really date much in high school. I was always one of the guys. I had a thing about not belonging to a "click", a tribe, a group. I became lonely and did things kids shouldn't do, like drink and experiment with drugs. I don't think that smoking led to those things, I think that poverty and abuse and family issues and loneliness made me higher risk to go down that path. I was a "smart" kid with good grades, while my brother struggled with school and his disabilities, so the family focus was on him. Growing up I didn't understand his needs and was jealous of the attention he got. That also gave fuel to my need to "act out" and do things kids aren't supposed to do. Looking back on my youth, I realize how loudly I was crying out in my own way to be noticed and accepted.

By the time I was done with high school, I was smoking up to 2 packs a day and continued to do so for over 40 years. I lost count years ago of all the times and ways I tried to quit smoking. It felt like I was a failure. The point of the story of my youth is that parents can do their best, and still have kids that experiment, make bad choices, act out, or seek relief from feelings a parent might not even know a kid has. Time to move on to adulthood.

As a young adult  I developed some health issues and was told I'd never be able to have a child. I have a bit of a defiant streak in me, and I told those doctors that I believed that when I quit messing up my life, settled in with a good man, God would give me 1 child. It would be a boy with blond hair, blue eyes, and freckles. 

In 1984 I met that man. In 1985 I gave birth to an amazing boy with blond hair, blue eyes, and later on - freckles! God gave me my miracle baby. We thought we were being good parents, but now I live everyday with the guilt that our miracle baby grew up breathing second hand smoke. What damage did we do to him, exposing him to that? Did this contribute to his learning disabilities, his seasonal affective disorder, or his unspecified social disorder (believed to be undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome)? There's no science that says those things, but I think it's natural for a mother to blame herself. I'll get back to my son's health in a bit.

The amazing Mom I had as a kid went away as one traumatic experience after another finally got the best of her. As she aged, she was obviously mentally ill, but would not seek medical help, the paranoia would not allow her to trust doctors. Mom's smoking did a number to her health and she had COPD.  She then quit smoking. After she quit smoking, her mental illness rapidly got worse. She got so bad, so verbally abusive it started to have an effect on my own mental health and I did not have any communication with her for 4 years. 

Then mom's neighbors started calling expressing concern. I called my brother and he drove up here to check on her. She was gravely ill, very delirious, and agreed to let him take her to a doctor. The doctor told her she had heart failure and cancer, with very little time to live. They admitted her for the night to get her stabilized and get her signed up for hospice care.

I had a key to her home and went to take care of her dog. The condition of her home took my breath away. She had become a hoarder and her home was packed with stuff. Some rooms were so full, you could only take a couple of steps into the room. There were binoculars at every window, so she could watch out into the woods for the people her paranoia convinced her were coming to get her. 

It was evident that she had been too ill to care for herself or her home for a long time. There was no way the county was going to let her live out her life there in those conditions. Christmas Day we put out the call for help. A Christmas Miracle happened when a dozen of the most loving, amazing friends joined my son and I at my mother's home and cleaned up things I choose not to go into detail about, so that my Mom could come home to die.

I spent the last month of my Mother's life with her, caring for her as much as she would allow. She struggled to breathe, it was exhausting for her to get up and use the bathroom. I sat with her as I heard her last breath leave her body at 2:04 a.m.. Smoking had killed another one.

I went outside and had a cigarette.

July of 2014 in the wee hours of the morning, my phone rang. I could barely hear my 29 year old son as he said in agony "Mom, I think I'm having a heart attack". We almost lost him that day. It was the worst day of my life. He was airlifted to a different hospital. The hour drive to get to him was agonizing, as we had no way of knowing if he was dead or alive. Healthy guy, no blood pressure issues, no cholesterol problems, but the doctor said that smoking caused 3 clogged arteries in his heart. After putting 2 stents in his heart, his life was saved. 

He didn't start smoking until he was 18. It only took 11 years to do this damage to him. I hope I did a good job of parenting my son, but I don't think I will ever forgive myself for smoking around him and setting the example of smoking being OK. After his heart attack, he tried vaping and he quit smoking. The doctor told him if he started smoking again he would die. My son hasn't smoked since. His doctor encourages him to continue to vape to prevent relapse.

Our next scare was  the day my husband called me and said he couldn't breathe. My son and I rushed him to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with COPD. By now, I'm sure you can guess the cause - SMOKING. Now he's inhaler dependent and his quality of life sucks. It will get worse as he ages. He quit smoking after being diagnosed with COPD.

I continued to smoke. My teeth started falling out. Yes, that is a smoking related issue, too. With many years of no dental insurance, and a problem with letting people put fingers in my mouth due to PTSD, a side effect of being raped and what was done during the rape. I spend my time embarrassed to smile or speak in public, because people assume that a toothless person must be a meth head or something.

I have spent my adult life trying to quit smoking. I have tried everything. The only thing that worked for me was Chantix, but after being on it for 3 weeks, I became a danger to myself and my doctor took it away from me. November of 2014 I tried vaping and I dual used for a few months before I accidentally quit smoking. I didn't try to quit, I was just vaping in places I couldn't smoke and ended up transitioning to just vaping. I have been smoke-free ever since.

I'm proud to say that my step-grandson has also quit smoking thanks to vaping, and my great grand kids are now the first generation growing up in a smoke free home. My whole family is now smoke-free! Vaping has changed the lives of 4 generations!

My husband has been confined to our home since fall of last year, because of a big influenza outbreak followed by the COVID pandemic . He sits out there in our rural home with no contact with anyone besides my son and myself. Our granddaughter has not been to our home in months. He is very high risk of dying if he gets influenza or COVID-19. COPD is an ugly price to pay for smoking.

July of this year was 6 years since my son had his heart attack. 2 days after that anniversary, his girlfriend called me and told me I needed to come get him as he's sure he's having another heart attack. I rushed to his side and drove him to the ER. They met him at the door and rushed him back. I parked the car and they told me I needed to go in the back right away. I was only in his room a couple of minutes when he coded and they told me to go to the hallway. I stood out in that hallway calling out to him the whole time, hoping he'd hear my voice and not slip away from us forever. They saved him, rushed him to surgery, where he coded again. They placed another stent in his heart. This is when we learned that his smoking when he was a young adult gave him heart disease. He will be on medications for the rest of his life and will always be at risk for another heart attack.

Every time my phone rings, fear grips my heart. The first thought that crosses my mind is did he have another heart attack and if he did, did it kill him this time? As a mom, I know you know how frightening this can be.

As many of you fear your children using vapor products, I wish with a broken heart that my son, my husband, and my mom would have never started smoking and would have had the option to vape instead. I wish we would have known that one of the reasons mom's mental illness might have gotten so much worse was because she quit smoking and we would have offered her an alternative source of nicotine to ease some of her suffering and the heartbreak we all experienced watching her deteriorate. 

I learned to be a Momvocate from my Mom. From birth her life threw her one hard knock after another. She never gave up. She never quit fighting for what she believed was right. She was generous and giving. She was a kind lady outside of the behaviors her mental illness caused later in her life.  I cherish the memory of my mom, Margaret Place. It's a horrible legacy to know that she died twice.  The first time when the mental illness took away all the goodness in her and replaced her with an angry, paranoid person who could no longer trust anyone. The second time was from the COPD, Heart Disease, and Cancer - a death I refer to as "death by smoking". I hope none of our kids have to witness their mom dying twice.

I am hopeful that the movie You Don't Know Nicotine will teach more of us that there are 2 sides to every story. I hope the movie will motivate Momvocates from all sides to sit down and talk about the issues that are worrisome to us. I hope we can find ways to help youth make better choices, help society do a better job of enforcing the law, and continue to leave life saving technology on the market for those who need those products. I hope we can get away from stigmatizing people and substances, to leave a better future for all.  

Thank-you for sharing your stories. I hope my story will give you a perspective as to why moms like me fight so hard to save what moms like you are fighting against. My dream is that someday it will be hard to find a Mom with a story like mine. I'm guessing that some of you also have a dream of someday a Mom not having a story like yours. I'd give anything for us to find a way to sit down and talk about how to protect kids like yours AND protect kids like mine. It just doesn't seem right for concerned moms to be at odds with each other, when we could accomplish so much more if we found a way to work together.