I'm making yet another run at smoking cessation on 12/1, for the umpteenth to the 32nd power time.

Damn - you talk about being powerless over an addiction. If you don't smoke this post won't make sense. If you do smoke, it may not make sense either. Your call.

Perhaps my motivation this time could be the 3rd cardiac catheter I'm having done December 11th, this time in preemptive mode, as the result of a sour stress test, as opposed to the prior two which were as the result of cardiac vapor lock. 49 years old and two heart attacks is probably not the best position to be in to keep puffin' the death sticks. (I'm Diabetic - 2 out of 3 Diabetics croak from heart attacks - thanks Grandma! )

I've had two significant Cancer surgeries, and a half a dozen slices taken out of me for assorted other not as serious skin cancers, so I'm fine emotionally from 'practice' if you will, and to tell you the truth, as a connoisseur of fine cardiac cath procedures, a heart catheter procedure is actually less stressful to me than going to the dentist. During the first heart catheter / stent install I asked the doc, "Is this going to hurt?" He replied: "I'm already inside your heart." I answered something deep, class I narcotic foggy, and prolific like "Cool!"

If one doesn't quit smoking after three heart catheters, perhaps the doctor should just mercy kill the smoker, and save everyone a lot of time and trouble.

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Phun phacts of little importance - a stent is a small piece of coated stainless mesh tubing. The doc shoves it into the blocked artery, then jacks it open with a little balloon on the end of his catheter. Parts cost for one itty bitty stent: $3,600. Labor - Oh, figure around 20 or 30K, depending upon how much they charge for the room & board.
http://www.heartsite.com/html/stent.html