Hello, and I am definitely glad to be here with you today. I quit smoking on February 13. This is important and it seemed like it wasn't any problem for me. I had smoked for 42 years and here I just put them down!! Well that date was 2/13/98. On March 1st I felt my eye (right) lid drooping. It really started bugging me by the 3rd so I went to my family doctor and she was trying to put me on Prednisone again. I said no and proceeded to call the eye specialist and went to him. He had me go for an MRI and they found the aneurysm.
The eye drooping is called Horner's syndrome and it is usually the result of lung cancer. The doctor said that my aneurysm was a first for him connected to Horner's syndrome. Now he would look at every patient for aneurysms with Horner's syndrome.
I was sent to Indiana University Hospital to see Dr. Pritz and he ask if I smoked and I said I quit February 13. He then said that is a good thing because your lungs have got to be able to handle the surgery and it takes 8 weeks for them to clear and your surgery is scheduled for April 13!
Now through all the stress I was going through I never did want a cigarette. So I say thank you God every day for keeping me here until I do whatever it is you have in store for me. Oh, and by the way my surgery took 13 hours and I was home 5 days later and back to my job in 6 months. I feel very privileged to be able to say that.
God bless all of you cause you know what I have been through! please feel free to email me if you want to talk.