THE END OF 20 YEARS RELATIONSHIP

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It was during the third semester break in 1988 when we first befriended her.  We were fourteen years old and was in Form 2 at Bukit Bintang (Boys) Secondary School. We tasted her together... Zarir Salleh, Syamreen Azam Shafei and me at Zarir's house in Taman Tun Dr Ismail 22 years ago. That was how it started... that was how we all became Smokers. The habit worsen with almost 3 packs a day now. Two years ago, I even blog about my inseparable relationship with Cigarette at HERE.

Exactly a year ago, my brother Mohammed Rhiza Ghazi too had divorced his Red Malborough. My driver, Sanwan had quit smoking. Cousin Noor Ervin Shahriz Noordin, friends Suanie T, Cynthia Gan, Shobha Bala to name a few had ended their relationship with Ciggie.

Armin, cigarette and cancer...

Why do I smoke? Having survived terminal cancer and being given second lease of life, I should really stopped smoking. It pisses my sister Rose Emini the most. Emi donated her bone marrow when I underwent the Bone Marrow Transplant for Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia more than a decade ago. My dad will say it is all in the mind reminding me that I can do whatever I want to do.. if I want to!

Moreover the fact that I now run marathons and participated in various dualthon and triathlon series, I have all the reasons to stop smoking. My parent, siblings and friends had retired in their many attempts to ask me to quit smoking.

Why I did not stop smoking? When I was an undergraduate at the University of Buckingham, I took an optional dissertation Health Economics paper to research and study Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) of a terminal cancer patient. QALYs is usually used as a measure to calculate the utility gained (quality of life in years) against cost (of treatment). In my case the quality of life that I would have gained, against the cost of the Bone marrow transplant,

I was keen to understand the quality of life that I will have in QALY measurement. In short, given the age of diagnosis, the age I underwent the bone marrow transplant, the year I had the relapse, the post-bone marrow transplant (after relapse) treatment and assuming similar technology and lifestyle, I will have a good quality of life until the age of 45 years old.

My quality of life as a smoker, given the number of year I have been smoking, the amount of cigarette i smoke and lifestyle, will began to deteriorate after the age of 56 years old. Meaning, given my past medical history, my life will end before the cigarette takes effect on my quality of life.

Yaa.. lame excuse but it is a logic :-) Nonetheless, I can participate in various dualthon and triathlon series and can run the full 42km marathon as well as ultra marathon which many non-smokers cannot do. BUT really unless you have had terminal cancer, you should really stop smoking… :-D ;-)