Elevate Your Health Colorado Now active, happy and energetic after quitting cigarette smoking

Darlene Shepherd was fighting the good fight for years. A cigarette-smoker for more than 40 years, she had lost count of the number of times she had quit before. The physical addiction and habits had hardened like concrete over time and slowly put a stranglehold on her life.

“I couldn’t do anything. I couldn’t walk a quarter of a block. I just thought I was in bad shape,” she says. “But then I found out my main artery in my leg was so blocked, there was no circulation, and it was from smoking.”

The final straw…and a persistent doc
While Darlene’s decision to quit smoking eventually changed her life—it took some dire circumstances and an insistent doctor for her to change course. Her primary care physician, Juanita Redfield, MD, had been “harping” on her to quit for years, she says. Redfield also is the lead for Kaiser Permanente’s Tobacco Cessation and Cardiovascular Risk Reduction program in Colorado.

When Darlene told her doctor about the pain and numbness in her leg, Redfield had a CT scan performed, which revealed a complete blockage in her right leg. Redfield told her a stent in her leg wouldn’t do the trick. Bypass surgery would get the blood flowing in her leg again, but she told Darlene she needed to address the cause first. “I finally made the decision to quit. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do,” she says.

“Quitting smoking can be difficult because the ‘now’ cravings can outweigh the ‘later’ promise of better health down the road,” says Redfield. “When you have a medical event like Darlene had, suddenly that battle is on equal footing. The health crisis you’re facing is ‘now.’ But other situations can force the change, like becoming a grandparent or endangering the health of another loved one by smoking around them.”

By the time Darlene had her surgery, she had been smoke-free for five months. “I had to change my behavior—had to stop smoking during my breaks at work, and in my car,” she says. “I used the ‘patch’ during this time. I stopped buying cigarettes. I learned to chew gum instead of lighting up. I also called the toll-free ‘Colorado Quitline.’  I had great support from family, friends and of course, Dr. Redfield.”

“I had tried to quit many times before by just limiting how much I’d smoke,” she explains. “But I always knew if I really needed a cigarette that bad, I could smoke one. This time however, I was very disciplined. I told myself, ‘No, I don’t need one.’ And I started feeling better, too.”

That was then. This is now.
Darlene felt so much better, she decided to retire after her surgery. And now she even has more money for her new lifestyle. “I don’t spend money on cigarettes. I spend it playing,” she says.

Limited to very short walks before, she’s now got an active lifestyle that includes snowshoeing (see photo above), golfing, organized walks, aerobic swimming, hiking, and mentoring elementary students two hours a week. But that’s not all. She’s also…

• Lifting weights.  “I do the full power pack work-out at the gym, including muscular strength and range-of-motion classes. I do jumping jacks, squats and weight-lifting.”
• Living without limits. “My life has changed in so many ways since I quit smoking and had the surgery,” she explains. “I wouldn’t have even thought to be able to do these things. You quit smoking and you can try to tackle anything, instead of sitting and thinking you can’t do anything. I’ve found a lot of my difficulties were due to smoking. I even mow my own lawn now.”

For smokers who want to quit, Darlene wants to remind them that smoking cessation often takes several serious tries. Never give up giving up. “Just keep after it,” she says. “It’s worth it. My kids love it. Now, I wake up each morning with real joy.”

For more information on smoking cessation, visit kp.org.