The dreaded C.

My mother is a smoker.  Since the age of 18.  She's now 66.  That's 48 years of smoking.

My mother now has cancer.

When I was a teenager and learnt about cigarettes and all the associated health risks,  I tired everything to convince her to quit smoking.  Scare tactics.  Giving her the facts. Ultimatums.

Of course nothing worked because she has to want to quit.  It doesn't matter how much I want her to.

I know that you cannot make another person do something they don't want to do.  But that hasn't stopped me from trying.  Because I love her.  Because I love her very much and I can't imagine a world without her in it.  Because I don't want to lose her before her time.  Because I don't want to lose her to a long, drawn out,  horrible illness.

She has tried to quit many times.  Mostly she's managed for a few weeks at a time. One time she did give up for a couple of years.  Then the news that my father had passed away reached her and the first thing she did was head to the shops to buy a pack of cigarettes.

The good news is that it looks like the cancer has been caught early and will be easy to remove.  Though she hasn't seen a specialist yet, so I will wait to hear what s/he has to say before I totally relax.