Thread by @imaracingmom

I feel a thread coming on. Grab a coffee and your reading glasses. My feels are flowing.

With so much conversation about bias and disclosures I thought maybe it was time to look at my own. Why is the movement to #ChangeTheConversation and save #ABillionLives so important to me?

I chose to enjoy some online interaction with fellow advocates last night and stayed up very late. So I already knew I'd be tired today because of lack of sleep. The little sleep I got was far from restful.

I dreamed I was in a hallway, peeking through the crack in a door. Saying, pleading, yelling...

"Hang in there bud, you got this, come back to us, please don't die! I love you, I'm here, can you hear me? TOM! It's Mom. Please hang in there".

I dreamt it over and over. 😢

That isn't just a bad dream, it's a memory. This happened last July when my son was again having a heart attack. (He was 35 for this one).

Good old Mom drove him to the ER, because he won't get in an ambulance. Chalk it up to #neurodiversity and move on...

When he first got in my car, I drove like you know how a mom would drive. He begged me to slow down, said he was doing OK.

We got 1/2 way there and he grabbed his phone and called the ER and asked them to meet us at the door. His face was grey and he told me to "step on it".

I dropped him at the door and went to park the car. I walked in and the lady working the desk is a customer at the shop. She told me to head back and to hurry.

Tom was already hooked up to stuff and they were asking questions. A clergy person walked in.

And then the alarms went off, Tom said "Oh God, here it comes". Then he looked like he was having a seizure and a nurse yelled at me to get out of the room. How the hell do you ask a mother to leave her baby's side??? Staff started rushing in. The Clergy person led me out.

For what felt like an eternity, I stood out there calling to him, begging him not to die. And then they wheeled him out and whisked him off to surgery.

No time to talk, no hugs, no kisses, no hand holding. I yelled "I LOVE YOU" as he went down the hall surrounded by nurses.

He had another stent put in his heart. That added to the 2 they put in when he was 29 and had his first heart attack.

Usually smoking waits until you're older to do these things to you. My son has always done things in his own time, and the problems hit him at 29.

Thursday I was given the opportunity to participate in a zoom meeting with 3 other people who care about the death and disease caused by smoking. To say I was nervous is an understatement.

This wasn't 3 fellow advocates from my normal circle. I was sitting in front of 3 dudes with degrees and I had to work very hard all week to get over feeling intimated. The 4 of us come from different places on the great debate over smoking.

I had to check my biases at the door, and make sure I listened with an open mind. After fighting for THR for so long, it's way too easy to put my guard up and think of people as the enemy. I remembered a saying:
There are no enemies, just people you haven't made friends with yet.

We had to introduce ourselves and explain how we ended up at that table. I didn't want to mention I own a vape shop. I feared people would assume it's about the money.

I found them very welcoming. It was a nice opportunity to get to know each other and share our thoughts.

I shared my son's story, that I am from the #neurodiversity community, and I come from a long line of people who smoke.

We're going to meet again, and I'm looking forward to it. 4 people, beginning a conversation that needs to happen around the world.

In the end, we all want the same thing. To end the death and disease caused by smoking. We have various levels of comfort in people using nicotine outside of smoking, we're all concerned about kids. I think we learned we have more in common than differences.

I don't look at my shop as a job. To me, it's a community service. It's my mission in life, to help people stop smoking and I'm doing it the best way I know how.

Yesterday, when I left the shop a lady walked by who we had helped quit smoking years ago. I haven't seen her since the EVALI outbreak and the misinformation campaign that made people think that vaping nicotine was the culprit, instead of the truth, which was Vit E in THC carts.

She awkwardly said hi and hurried away. Tears flowed down my cheeks. I thought about all the people we've helped that have relapsed to smoking since EVALI, Tobacco 21, and business shut downs due to COVID. My sales are down 61% from Pre-EVALI.

I don't care about the money. I support people working their way to zero nic and stopping vaping when they feel that relapse to smoking is no longer a threat for them.

What I care about is seeing people go back to smoking, or not trying to quit anymore because they don't know the truth about the levels of risk for smoking vs. vaping.

Owning a shop is not a conflict of interest for me. It's not about my shop. It's about people who smoke. At the meeting, I told the 3 gentlemen there that my purpose of being there was to prevent more Moms from having to stand outside ER doors, begging their son not to die.

I choked back the tears trying to tell 3 strangers that. Those words came straight from the heart.

No matter if your mission is THR, TC, or PH we all want the same thing. End the death and disease from smoking. I hope more people will sit down and talk about this.

We'd save more lives faster if we'd work together.

And we'd save Moms from nightmares about begging their babies not to die.

I can't think of a better reason to put down our weapons and begin the peace talks.

~ End of Thread