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Seniors Scene > Now even cigarettes are electronic

Published: 2011-03-09    Views:97 reads

Please. Stop the world. I want to get off.

Take me to some place where there are not a zillion channels on my television set and where it is not a challenge to your strength and agility to open the cap of a bottle of legal drugs. I am looking for the simple life, a reminder of the past that many senior citizens remember and tend to prefer although they begrudgingly admit that the new offers some advantages over the old.

After all, in those days gone by, you couldn’t change your television channel with something called a clicker while you were sitting in your living room rocker or even when you were off your rocker. You couldn’t ride in airplanes until they took pictures of what you were wearing inside and out and they weren’t for fashion magazines. You couldn’t send messages and receive them on computers that did everything except make love.

Everything is moving so fast these days that it’s difficult to keep on track. The latest is something called an electronic cigarette where people smoke electronics. Huh? This shocking new invention is designed to stop people from smoking tobacco. Its boosters say it is tar free, cheaper and produces the same pleasurable effect as the naughty cigarette, which also produces dangerous effects.

On the Internet, one of the mysteries that some seniors encounter, the electronic people try to explain simply what their new product is all about.

“Electronic cigarettes offer the same enjoyable smoking experience that real cigarettes offer,” the proponents contend. ”You take a puff and blow out ‘smoke’ while it gives you nicotine just like a real cigarette would. The main difference between the two is that the electronic cigarette does not contain the thousands of harmful ingredients that are found in tobacco, doesn’t produce obnoxious odors or smells , doesn’t stain your teeth and clothing , and can be used just about anywhere, including places that have banned smoking. Electronic cigarettes will do all this while costing up to 70 percent less than traditional smoking.”

When I kicked the habit some 40 years ago, there was no such thing as electronic cigarettes. There were suggestions that I should carry a pack of Lucky Strikes or whatever in a shirt pocket next to my heart as a reminder of the consequences of smoking, Another idea was to buy Life Savers and chew and suck them when the desire came for a  smoke. The trouble with that recommendation was that I chewed the Life Savers faster than I could smoke a cigarette.

My then-doctor cast aside all those ideas. Instead, he said I should quit cold turkey. That didn’t work. I was too chicken to do that. Eventually I suffered from stomach ulcers and underwent surgery. I stopped during the recovery period. And never has tobacco touched my lips since then.

I mentioned electronic cigarettes to my present doctor and he seemed to take a dim view of it all. He had kicked the habit some time ago with the help of nicotine patches. So it is suggested that before you try it out that you first consult your physician for his or her advice.

Every day, it seems, something new is being invented, especially in the medical field. I suspect in the present generation or the next new inventions, some good, others questionable, will brighten or dampen our lifestyles. Perhaps the most amazing will be an invention in which doctors can examine their patients without ever seeing them in person at their offices.

Here’s how it would work. The patient buys what I will call a “health scope.” He keeps it in his house and when it is time for his routine examination or he has a medical complaint, he stands in front of his “health scope,” pushes a button and the doctor, miles away, pushes a button on his big “health scope” and focuses on the various parts of the patient’s body, just like he would if the patient was in his office. Blood pressures, eye examinations, EKGs all could be done via this new invention. They would even  find a way for a urologist to do his work long distance.

Sounds ludicrous? Who would have thought a century or so ago that there would be such a thing as a catscan. Maybe they can call my  new idea a dogscan. By that time, though, the world will have stopped for me and I will have found a place to get off.

http://www.shorenewstoday.com/index.php/health-a-fitness/9497-seniors-scene-g-now-even-cigarettes-are-electronic-.html