My New Year’s resolution was realized early in May last year. That was also the time I began to meet the strongest version of myself when I quit smoking cold turkey. I had a lung cancer scare.

When I thought that the cigarette was an ally to allay all mylife’s concerns and fears, abandoning it in a jiffy was an act of courage. Smoking was an enemy disguising as a comrade. Though it did not come without a warning sign — for each pack of the reds I bought came with illustrated reminders of the health ills brought by smoking — my body and mind had already yielded to the cigarette’s temptation. Yes, the warning signs were there for me to stop lighting a stick but my mind, as if some preconditioning was done, did not heed the caution.

Smoking was life for me — for more than 35 years. A pack of cigarettes accompanied me in many moments. I lighted a cigarette when I was jubilant or encumbered with challenges. Problem solving was aided by thick smoke spiraling like a phantom in mid-air. When rushing a deadline, cigarette ash simply just found its way into the crevices of my laptop’s keyboard. After eating, nicotine was dessert. I kept a pack of cigarettes in my pocket. In the process, smoking owned me.

Unlike the other resolutions I swore to myself in the past, quitting smoking, a tall order from Dr. Ely Obillo, my pulmonologist, was a promise I kept. It was a promise I would not break. Fear factored in my unexpected and unforeseen decision to abandon smoking just like that. I feared for my life. I repeat, for emphasis, I thought I had lung cancer.

In mid-May, my dear college friend Dayday Cabrera invited me to a three-night stay in her rented apartment in Los Banos. She was about to return to Sydney in a few days and it would be best to catch up. On my second night in LB, Dayday asked me to accompany her to a family hospital for her lab work. It was taking her almost forever to finish the tests and to combat my growing boredom, I went to the ER and approached the resident doctor to give me an order for a chest X-ray.

I decided to have an X-ray because I remembered Dr. Obillo asking me to return to his clinic at Perpetual Help hospital in Biñan City in February 2025, with my X-ray results after my checkup in January of the same year.

Back to the LB hospital, I was in high spirits when the radiology attendant took my chest X-ray. The room was freezing but the smile of the attendant thawed the cold. I felt fine.

At 9:45 p.m., my X-ray plate was already available. The official reading would be emailed to me at 1 a.m.

Dayday and I drove back to her apartment. She took a look at my plate and said: “I’m not a doctor but your plate is disturbing. It’s almost all white at the bottom.”

Past midnight, I received an e-mail confirming an impression that I had pneumonia in both my lungs. It was the first time I was found to have double pneumonia. I countered that I did not feel anything wrong with my body — I had no fever, no cough; I had a hearty appetite; I always had good sleep every night. I was asymptomatic.

Frantic, I sent the results right away to Dr. Obillo. My family trusts Dr. Obillo. He was the doctor of my late parents. He was the pulmonologist who held my hand when I had COVID when the deadly Delta strain was the menace. He also guided me when I journeyed through long COVID, even after when the pandemic was gone.

Dr. Obillo was usually fast to the draw but that moment when I was reaching out to him to calm my nerves, he was changing planes in Europe, catching a flight back to Manila. When he finally read my Viber message after a few hours, he gave me an order to have a plain chest CT scan.

I became paranoid when I read online that double pneumonia could be contagious. Dayday’s apartment was in a compound and during my stay, I played with a toddler and had dinner with immunocompromised senior citizens. I declared to them my condition. It was a relief when I found out everybody had immunity shots for pneumonia.

My paranoia stayed when I asked another physician why my pulmonologist ordered me a chest CT scan. She told me that it’s a tool that can detect small lung nodules and tumors, and they could reveal lung cancer at its earliest stage. Of course, she countered, that the chest CT scan is usually the first step in diagnosis. A biopsy is always a way of confirmation. I prayed hard enough I would not reach there.

On May 19, I got the results of my plain chest CT scan from the hospital. The plate was a series of oblongs and circles. The written impressions were also alien to me. I was afraid to Google up the terms. But it was clear to me that the CT scan confirmed that I had pneumonia in both my lungs.

On May 20, I was already in the clinic of Dr. Obillo. He had a serious look on his face. His mien, though, was that of a loving, concerned doctor.

“I want to talk to you like a father to his son,” Dr. Obillio told me. I was barely warming up myself on the chair. “My suspicion of an ailment worse than double pneumonia is not present. Your lungs, well, are free from cancer cells. You also don’t have emphysema or COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).”

He added: “Now, if I were to be a father to you, and I say it with all sincerity, I recommend to you that you stop smoking because if you don’t, I have serious reservations that your future chest CT scans will show results as favorable as those we see now.”

“When do I stop?” I asked.

I bargained with my doctor. I still had five sticks of red left in the pack. I wanted to finish them. By 11:20 p.m., I finished the last of the five sticks. I buried the butt in the ground.

The following day, May 21, the second death anniversary of my mother, I went to visit her in the cemetery.

“Mang, I have a gift for you. I already stopped smoking today; it’s my gift to you because you had long wanted me to stop smoking. Please pray that I will not be a back slider.”

I prayed that I would not have nicotine cravings. I asked friends to pray for me not to experience withdrawal syndrome.

The first one week was hard. But what kept me going to abandon totally smoking was the smell of my hands. As a smoker, I could not smell the full stench of the cigarette in my body. But always, always, I did not like the smell of my hands because they reeked of nicotine even after I had washed them thoroughly.

But when the disgusting stench in my hands slowly disappeared, I was encouraged all the more to stop smoking. On the second month without cigarettes, I could smell in my hands the freshness of the pomelo liquid hand soap I bought from Sonya’s Garden. I now loved the scent of my hands. And I loved it all the more I became more confident shaking hands of people I just met.

After a month without nicotine, I went back to Dr. Obillo with an X-ray plate. Everything was normal. My double pneumonia was gone. I’d never touched a cigarette since May 21. I was in the pink of health.

And so I thought.

The menace of smoking did not go to my lungs. It went to my heart.

Mid-August, in a routine checkup, my treadmill stress test revealed an abnormality in my ECG. On Sept. 12, I underwent an angiogram. My angiogram revealed that I could not have an angioplasty because my major heart arteries were all blocked. I had a quadruple bypass on Sept. 27. It was the time I met again the strongest version of myself.

What did the doctors find in my blocked arteries? Mostly nicotine plaque.

I had a relationship with smoking for more than 35 years. It was the relationship that betrayed me and literally broke my heart. It almost caused my life.

Now, I am free from the bondage of nicotine. So help me God.

Happy New Year!

Original source: ph