THE MAN WHO WROTE HIS OWN OBITUARY

Mark Waters

Cigarettes were the death of me. I became acquainted with my killer when I was 14 and began stealing several a day from my father's pack.

Smoking caused some nausea at first, but persistence conquered.

I was born in Davenport, Iowa, on June 2, 1909.

At 16, I moved with my family, including two sisters, to Baltimore, a city that I loved and adopted as my hometown.

It was still no problem getting cigarettes.

I got odd jobs after school to buy them, and tried all sorts of brands, such as Melachrinos, Omars and English Ovals. I felt quite sophisticated, but I can't recall now that I enjoyed smoking them.

In 1928, the coming depression cast its shadow. With money scarce, my father began counting his Camels, so a friend and I took to picking butts off the street. We toasted the tobacco in an oven and rolled it into rice-paper cigarettes. They were horrible.

Jobs for youth were hard to find, so I decided to join the Navy—a mouth removed from the table, and I could send money home.

Now cigarettes were no problem. If you were at sea, they were 4 cents a pack. I smoked two packs a day, drawing in most of the smoke.

When my 20-year Navy career ended, I went to the University of North Carolina. After I graduated I got a job in San Diego.

One night, while walking to my car, I had a slight stroke and staggered to the left. I had been smoking one cigarette after another that night, and I felt that that was what caused it.

My wife, Muriel, and I tried to quit. We lasted eight days.

It wasn't that I got any real pleasure out of smoking. Except for the first cigarette in the morning with my coffee, I never enjoyed it.

My mouth always tasted nasty. Smoking took away my appetite. It brought on emphysema that made it hard to breathe.

In 1956, smoking more than ever, I came to Honolulu to work for a local newspaper.

In June 1965 my stomach began hurting, and I would get up every hour or half hour during the night to drink milk and smoke a cigarette.

In September 1965 I came down with a horrible cough. I was hoarse, and there was a nasty soreness in my left lung.

I went to my doctor. He listened to my chest and ordered an X-ray.

"You have a lung tumor," he said.

Four days later, the lung surgeon took out a left lobe.

A month later, I was back at work. I hadn't smoked since the day before my operation. It wasn't hard to quit—for one simple reason. Motivation.

I came along fine, gained ten pounds and really felt good. Then, on January 3, I thought I had caught a cold.

I went to my surgeon, who tapped a quart of fluid from my left chest cavity.

I went back several times, and my surgeon said, "The time is drawing closer.

Later, my wife told me he had told her after the operation that I had less than a year to live. But she wouldn't believe it, and she didn't tell me. I find no fault with that.

There are four cell types of lung cancer. The type seems to have a lot to do with its rate of growth. My doctor told me this; he also said that out of every 20 lung-cancer cases only one survives. The other 19 die.

That's the survival rate for lung cancer, taking into consideration all available forms of treatment. There is no 50-50 chance—the figure for other cancers—for this type of cancer.

My doctor is enthusiastic about getting people to quit cigarettes. He says that there's no question of the relationship between cigarette smoking and lung cancer. The statistics are overwhelming. It is estimated that one in every eight males who have been smoking heavily (20 cigarettes or more a day) for 20 years gets lung cancer.

The bad effect of cigarettes doesn't end with lung cancer. Smoking doubles the chances of death from heart disease, and the chances of dying from emphysema are 12 times greater.

I think doctors get to feeling pretty helpless at times. They warn people like me, but all their warnings go unheeded.

And there's all that cigarette advertising. As my doctor says, "Millions of dollars are spent in all forms of advertising to give the public the impression that cigarettes can make up for a number of shortcomings."

In Italy and Great Britain they have passed a ban against all cigarette advertisements on TV. I think that's a step in the right direction because, as the doctor says, the big effort should be to stop kids from getting started.

Whether this story will stop anyone from smoking, I don't know. I doubt it. Not a soul I've preached to has quit smoking—not a single soul.

You always think: "It will happen to the other guy; never to me.

But when you get your lung cancer—God help you.

All you need to see is that shadow on your chest X-ray. It's a real shocker. You can't do a thing.

At this point, I'm comfortable. The nurses give me something whenever there's pain.

I'm very short of breath. I can't take five steps without having to sit. The cancer has gone into my liver and I don't know where else.

I don't have a ghost of a chance.

It's too late for me.

It may not be for you.