Kristy's Story: E-Cigarettes Didn't Stop Her Smoking — a Collapsed Lung Did

Kristy grew up in a small town in Tennessee, where many of her friends and relatives smoked. She had her first cigarette at 13, with an older sister, and soon smoked regularly herself. By 33 she had been smoking for 20 years — three packs a day. She had a deep smoker's cough and was often short of breath.

Trying e-cigarettes

Kristy hoped electronic cigarettes would help her cut back, but she never stopped smoking regular cigarettes; every afternoon the craving for a real one came back. Her cough did not improve. In the end she dropped the e-cigarettes and went back to smoking cigarettes alone.

She had tried to quit many times before. Each time, something stressful would send her back to a cigarette.

The day her lung collapsed

A few months later, Kristy's right lung collapsed — something that can be life-threatening. A long-haul truck driver, she had just climbed down from her truck after many days on the road. The pain, she remembers, was like being stabbed in the back, and she could not catch her breath. She was rushed to the hospital.

What frightened her most was the timing: she had only just got home. Had it happened while she was alone on the road, she did not know what she would have done.

Kristy spent two weeks in the hospital on strong pain medicine while doctors put in chest tubes and operated to repair the lung. Tests also found the early stages of emphysema and COPD — chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — lung diseases that make breathing steadily harder and have no cure. Her husband and children were scared to see her struggling for breath in a hospital bed. Her youngest, 7 years old, did not want to leave her side and broke down.

That was when Kristy stopped smoking completely.

Breathing again

Kristy is glad she quit. Life is easier: she has more money now that she is not buying cigarettes, and she feels much better. She says she can finally breathe and play with her children; when she smoked, she had no energy, and it touched every part of her life.

Many people she loves still smoke, including relatives, and she lectures them about it constantly. She lost her father early to a disease caused by smoking. She hopes her story will push people who smoke to do whatever it takes to quit, as soon as they can — and that even if it isn't her own family, it might help someone: a mother who could live longer for her children, or a father whose children don't lose him young.

Free help to quit

• Call 1-800-QUIT-NOW (1-800-784-8669). In Spanish: 1-855-DÉJELO-YA (1-855-335-3569). Chinese: 1-800-838-8917. Korean: 1-800-556-5564. Vietnamese: 1-800-778-8440.
• Text QUITNOW to 333888 (message and data rates may apply), or use the quitSTART app.
• Online: CDC's Quit Smoking pages and Smokefree.gov, both also in Spanish, and the Asian Smokers' Quitline.

Sources

Based on "Kristy G.'s Story," Tips From Former Smokers campaign, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; a work of the United States government in the public domain, with Kristy's words rewritten in hubnx's own words. Campaign portraits and ads are not reproduced.