“There is no doubt whatsoever that, had
it not been for an e-cigarette, I would not
have been able to quit. It’s that physicality
of being able to hold and puff something,
that’s the big difference.”
and I was quite pleased to hear a medical person talking
common sense, it surprised me.” It took Kevin another year
to heed his doctor’s advice. When he returned from a New
Zealand cruise with a terrible cough and breathing difficulties,
Kevin knew he was in deep trouble and spent six days in
hospital with pneumonia. It almost killed him.
The second book in Kevin’s ‘Hogan the Dog’ series is available
for download via pawsandclawsadoptions.com.au
A portion of sales go directly to the adoption organisation.
This was the first creative endeavour Kevin undertook without
the assistance of cigarettes, instead he vaped the whole way
through the writing of this instalment.
“I got out of hospital after overcoming the first bout of
pneumonia and the first thing I did was have a cigarette,
because I could. I was back in hospital about two weeks later,
pneumonia again and that’s when it hit me and I thought,
‘You’re an idiot, this is stupid, you’ve got to stop.’”
Armed with his vape and the luck of the Irish – an Irishman,
Kevin had moved to Australia when he was ten – he finally
gave up cigarettes on March 17, 2016, St Patrick’s Day.
“There is no doubt whatsoever that, had it not been for
an e-cigarette, I would not have been able to quit. It’s that
physicality of being able to hold and puff something, that’s
the big difference.”
Six months ago, two and a half years after Kevin made the
switch, he had a second lung function test. With trepidation,
he was waiting to hear that his lungs had dwindled further
below 41 percent, which would have been the expected
outcome.
But his doctor was perplexed, Kevin’s lung capacity was
up to 82 percent. He was given a new prognosis: ten years
before he’d need oxygen assistance.
Kevin says: “I remember walking down the long hospital
corridors, looking for the exit and, in that instant, taking in
that news, I felt young again.”
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