16 replies to this topic

[WoofWoof]

I realize there isn't a direct correlation between smoking and CML but I am curious how many of us have smoked?

I did for most of my adult life until two years before my CML dx. I've been smoke free for over seven years.

[ChrisC]

I smoked for nine years; quit in mid-1970s. Mom smoked, so there was second-hand smoke until I left home (a smoker).

[mariebow]

I am a non smoker, I only tasted a cigarette only one time in my life.  I was dx with CML Jan 2012 and I am 59 years old.  I was around my mom who smoked most her life, and second hand smoke as we are finding out is bad also.

[Susan61]

Hi:  I hate to admit it, but yes I was a smoker for a long time.  I never smoked when all my teen friends were smoking. at 14 and 15 years of age. I only started when I was 18 and in a workplace where everyone else smoked.  So, I picked up the bad habit then.

Its been 17 years since I quit.  I also quit 2 years before my diagnosis of CML.  I was always exposed to second hand smoke throughout my life.  I hope anyone who is still smoking would try to quit, as it does cause so many  health issues.

Susan

[TeddyB]

I was a "Party smoker", only smoked when drinking alcohol in social settings, maybe an average of 10 cigarettes pr month.

Stopped after i got CML.

[Otigon]

Hi..

I did smoke for about 12 years prior to my dx, been mostly smoke free ever since.

[GerryL]

My first Specialist mentioned to me that adults who got leukemia usually smoked - I was a non smoker, so he was a bit surprised.

We used to have smoking allowed everywhere once upon a time, so if it was passive smoking that caused mine, there would be a lot of other folk around my workplace that would have CML.

Perhaps for some it is a trigger. For me, I think it was long term stress.

[Susan61]

Who Knows???  They say that Leukemia is not inherited, and yet my Grandmother and Aunt both died of Leukemia on my fathers side.  Do they really know everything about it?  Then how many people never smoked and got it.

I do not even try to figure it out.

    If stress can do it, then it surely was stress that did it to me, and not the cigarettes.

[cleocans]

I am not or ever was a smoker.  I may have tried 3 cigarettes in my lifetime.  Both my parents were smokers so I did get it second hand as a kid growing up.

[Rissa]

I smoked for about 19 years.  Quit 3 years before dx.  Still want one.......

[CallMeLucky]

Not a smoker but mother and father were heavy smokers when I was a kid, I used to breath that stuff in all the time.  Good now I have something else to be mad at my parents about.....

[Tex]

AML patient but saw this on the main page and couldn't resist sneaking in here.

I had my first cigarette when I was 12 and my last the day before I started my second round of induction chemo.  I was a 37 year smoker when I quit and while I want one sometimes, it's never been an overpowering feeling.  I just light up a joint of my MMJ.  Naw, not really but I do still want one sometimes and it's been nearly nine years.

Interesting thing, when I had my first PFT following my SCT the tech told me my lungs were as good twentysomething nonsmoker.  I have difficulty believing that because all of my numbers remain the same but these don't feel like a kid's lungs to me.

I did have a cigar to celebrate the fifth anniversary of my SCT.  I loved it.  Other than that, tobacco free for, actually, over nine years.  I just put my thoughts together and it was May 1 that I went i for chemo and transplant.

Thanks for letting me drop in.  Love to talk about myself.

[Tex]

They tell us the same thing about AML, it's not hereditary.  However, I remember reading something a few years back indicating that there do seem to be an occasional situation where a family can have a tendency to contract myelogenous leukemias.  It's really rare and I don't remember the details but Maybe there's some new info on that.  It might help with your own kids.

Blessings

[Tex]

CallMeLucky wrote:
Good now I have something else to be mad at my parents about.....

Life's a collection of those things.

[Brerose]

I have never smoked and grew up with non-smoking parents. I was diagnosed 7/2012 at 28 yrs old.

[LLawrence]

Never smoked and rarely got second hand smoke.  Stress though, definitely.

[luvmybees24]

One time as a teenager and no second hand.