Hard time keeping up

Chantix Day 30; Quit Day 10

I keep making cards to keep my hands busy. My husband finds this very curious. He comes home from work and finds that half the living room is taken up with my papercrafting supplies, and I shrug and tell him, "Would you like to buy me a pack of cigarettes?"

Truthfully, I'm doing pretty well. No Chantix nausea; continuing vivid dreams that I can live with.

Yesterday Wesley helped to distract me by taking me to a motorcycle dealership.

Wesley (my husband of 20+ years) loves motorcycles. He used to have one, but he sold it a few years ago. I think I always knew that someday he would buy another motorcycle. He's so cute about motorcycles. I mean, it's like watching a little boy's enthusiasm whenever Wesley sees a Triumph.

So we went to a motorcycle dealer and Wesley drooled over the Triumphs that he says he won't buy for another ten years. (He's gonna retire in about ten years, at which point he'll want a motorcycle.) (So he says.)

I was just standing there thinking, "I have already saved a month's payment on this motorcycle... just from not smoking for ten days...."

But I am a selfish, spoiled brat, because I don't want to spend my savings on a motorcycle. I want to spend my savings on *me*.

So after the motorcycle dealership, I took me and Wesley and our son to a hamburger place that costs 'way more than burgers should cost. But OMG, they are divine burgers. I enjoyed that immensely and thanked myself the entire time for not buying cigarettes instead of those burgers!

Then my parrot Cosmo bit the daylights out of me. Long story. I cried and wished I had a cigarette to console me.

The thing is -- I didn't buy cigarettes. I didn't smoke. And I woke up and made it all the way through Thursday without buying cigarettes and smoking, even though I thought about it a lot.

I am not hanging out with Get Quit the way I should -- but somehow I'm making it through despite myself. I just tell myself "no," and I move on. I eat a sugar-free mint; I make a card; I distract myself in one way or another, I keep taking Chantix; And I Haven't Smoked In More Than Ten Days.

That's crazy.

And it's wonderful.

I think I might be a non-smoker in another couple of months.

Wouldn't that be cool?

I think a change, a change would do me good

I woke up this morning with a Sheryl Crow song running through my head.

First of all, I dreamt that I was smoking, and being one of those vivid Chantix dreams, I became very upset. I couldn't remember buying cigarettes; I couldn't remember lighting a cigarette, but there I was in the dream, puffing away.

Upon waking and realizing it was just a dream, I determined that I have had too wimpy an attitude about quitting.

I've now made it 8 entire days without a cigarette. If I fall off the wagon now, I have to do these 8 days all over again. That's about 200 hours out of my life. And they haven't been completely rosy, but they haven't been completely horrid, either. Do I really want to waste these first 8 days for nothing?

So I need to stop thinking such weak, longing thoughts about cigarettes. I just gotta. I don't want to vilify them or the people who still smoke them -- but I can't keep telling myself it's OK for *me* to smoke just because tobacco is legal. That doesn't solve anything.

Thank goodness for Maggie's blog and her blissful Linky Loos. In particular, this morning I found the ingredients list especially inspiring. *Formaldehyde*. For heaven's sake. Formaldehyde! Yeah, I knew it was there, in a vague, "I'm a smoker and I don't care cuz I luvs me my cigarettes" kind of way. But now I'm forcing myself to really consider that. Formaldehyde. Like the stuff that they preserve dead things in before you have to dissect those dead things in biology class. And man, I hated dissecting. It smelled so much like -- formaldehyde!

Can't believe I've been smoking formaldehyde for 22 years.

Definitely time for a change.

After deciding to change my attitude, I had to go back to see the doctor, which was nice. My blood pressure is down, but not down far enough for the doctor's comfort. So I have to take some bp drugs and go back in another 3 months. Hmmmm.

And then I came home and started making cards to keep my hands busy. Well, I had to do something! I've been washing the same windows for days. A change did me good!

Still getting along

Eight days -- eight days without a cigarette. I still can't believe it. Every day I think I'm about to cave in and smoke, and every night I look back at the day and realize that I haven't fallen off the wagon.

I'm sorry, but it must be said: This Chantix stuff is *miraculous*. I never could have made it this far on my own.

It's official, you know -- I haven't gone this long without a cigarette since January/February of 1988. That was my most successful attempt at quitting -- I made it about a month before I had a cigarette. Next to that, I made it four days in early 1997. Four. DAYS.

I am pitiful.

I am also incredibly lucky that someone decided to invent Chantix!

Thanks to everyone for all your support. I'm amazed and still struggling -- I thought today was particularly rough, with lots of moments thinking, "MAN, I want a cigarette!" -- but I got through it. I don't know how, but I'm glad.

I have to go to the doctor's office in the morning -- I hope she says my blood pressure is down! Wish me luck!

Got through another day

Chantix Day 26; Quit Day 6

I made it through another day. I have to be honest and confess that I really wanted to smoke today. I just miss it. I can't explain it. I know, on the logical and reasonable side of my brain, that I have made it through the hardest part in terms of nicotine withdrawal.

On the other hand, I just really want a cigarette.

Part of me longs to actually try one to see if it is as repulsive as some of those later cigarettes were. I mean, in the Chantix scheme of things, some of those last cigarettes just tasted like mud.

But that was, like, only for the last couple of days before I quit. What if... I mean... I mean, for 22 years, cigarettes were heaven on earth. What if I smoked a cigarette, and it tasted great? Would I kick myself? Oh, heck, yeah, I would! I loved smoking. Why did I give this up? I'm crazy.

I'm depriving myself of something I loved!

What is wrong with me?

On the other hand, I look at the bucks racking up on the QuitMeter. At ten dollars a day (or thereabouts), I've already saved $60 easily by not smoking in the last week.

That's cool.

Ten dollars a day. That's *cool*.

But I haven't seen that ten dollars a day yet. Somehow I keep spending it on ... chips and chocolate and lamb chops.

(OK, the lamb chops were totally worth it, as were the marinated asparagus. OMG. I need to share that recipe. The asparagus rocked!)

I do think I'm eating less. That's strange for me. I am not drinking as much; I'm not eating as much; I'm not smoking at all. ... Excuse me, but what is my reason for living?!?!

Seriously, I'll calm down. Or not. Whatever. But tomorrow is my one-week anniversary without smoking, and honestly, right now, what I really want to do to celebrate is... have a cigarette.

Still alive!

Righty-o. If you've never had an abscessed tooth, let me tell you right now, I would rather have to give birth while passing a kidney stone than go through that again. It is by far the worst pain I've ever experienced. And I've experienced all three kinds of pain. So I feel like an expert of the worst kind.

The nights were the hardest, because I desperately wanted to sleep. But the pain kept me awake. That's. Serious. Pain.

While breathing and trying to focus on not being in pain sometime Thursday night, I thought to myself, "I haven't even thought about smoking. If I make it through this abscess, I think I might actually be an ex-smoker."

Of course, Thursday was the day that a strange dentist I don't even know prescribed antibiotics for me. Thank heaven for antibiotics. I had to wait just about 24 hours to feel any kind of let-up in the infection, but once it started, oh, it felt so good!

I slept through last night for the first time since Tuesday night, and that also felt good. Now I'm up and walking around and eating and stuff.

And I have to tell you, now that I feel almost normal --

-- I would really like to have a cigarette.

But I'm aware that the nicotine is now officially out of my system, so really what I want is something to do with my hands. I'm baffled and mystified by this need to do something with my hands. I'm constantly asking, "What do non-smokers DO all the time? Do they just sit still and do nothing? How do they do NOTHING???"

I may have to take up crocheting or knitting or something. Because having nothing to do is kinda driving me crazy.

Irony bites

In searching for good reasons to quit smoking -- y'know, things that don't fall under the category of "because nonsmokers are such wet blankets that I really want to be just like 'em" -- one of the very good reasons to quit was because smoking is bad for your teeth.

I know this to be true because my dentist has told me so a number of times over the last twenty years. "Smoking makes it worse," he says, as he tsk's over my teeth.

Genetics and a poor location for my formative years have combined to give me a really bad set of teeth, anyway. We didn't have fluoride in the city water in the town where we lived when I was a baby. And I didn't have the best genes for strong teeth. So if you add in smoking, what you get is a pretty darned big honkin' mess.

Good thing I quit smoking, huh?

I quit on Monday. Late Tuesday, I bit down on the first bite of my dinner and thought, "Oh, that can't be good."

Wednesday night, I literally couldn't sleep from the pain in my tooth. This must be abscessing.

Now it's late Thursday afternoon. I managed to get to sleep by forcing myself to drink a shot of vodka straight up. Choked, sputtered, went to sleep, thank heaven.

I finally got hold of someone in my dentist's office, and the rotten son of a b**** is away at a conference this weekend. They can't fit me in until next Thursday.

That is impossible. I can't live that long like this.

Now, I haven't spent much time awake today, but I have to say that smoking isn't the first thing on my mind. Except in an ironic vein. I quit smoking. Quitting is supposed to be good for my teeth. Now I have an abscess. Irony bites.

Acceptance is the first step

I Am Iron Woman.

Today was really rough. If I had to grade Wednesday on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the least stressful and 10 being the most stressful, then I would have to give today an 8.99. (I'm guessing that in order for it to be a 10, I would have to either kill someone or live through a loved one's death. Those are the only more-stressful things I can imagine. "Moving" would be a 9.8, of course. That's the scale I'm going with.)

(And I hope you understand what I'm talking about.)

Let's see. Today I had writer's block with a deadline, and my daughter and I had a huuuuuge fight and I stomped out of the house and drove around -- not getting out of the car, because I didn't even wear shoes when I stomped out of the house -- and I still didn't buy cigarettes or smoke. I cried. I ranted. I raved. But I didn't smoke.

I watched a movie that's really a little too emotional for someone in my condition to watch. ("Catch & Release," in case you're wondering, and it's not as bad as the reviews might have led me to believe; in fact, I rather liked it.)

I fixed dinner, although, honestly, I hate fixing dinner and desperately wish a miracle would happen to keep me from fixing dinner all the time. (It's been 20 years. I'm tired of fixing dinner. And I would feel badly about that, but all my friends tell me they feel the same way, which is why so many of them are buying those Bertolli frozen things. It's dinner without all the fixing.)

And then, to top off the whole fabulous day, I had a conference call. About stressful stuff. And I had a bad connection to that conference call about stressful things, and I got kicked out of it in the middle of the call, and I don't know why.

Then my favorite contestant got kicked off of "Top Chef."

I still haven't bought any cigarettes, nor have I smoked any, but OMG, I so want to smoke. I so want to.

Did I mention I have a tooth that hurts?

Shoot me now.

Can I sleep through Thursday? Please?

I made it another day. I didn't buy any cigarettes. I didn't drive off a mountain. I am going to make it through tonight and on to Thursday. I am.

Oh, and the Elvis-tribute Reese's cups are fabulous. Reese's cups with banana flavoring added in. I'm not kidding, those things are wonderful. I had absolutely no idea that Elvis was onto something with the disgusting-sounding fried-peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches. Add in Reese's and chocolate, and it's almost enough to make up for the total lack of tobacco in my life!