Hi,
Anyone else out there caring for a long-term smoker? The one thing we thought mum wouldn’t forget after 61 years of smoking is how to light a cigarette. She gets through 3 lighters a day by flicking them on and off but holding the lighter too far away. She sometimes tries to “light” the remote control, handset for the phone, or other lighters. She puts three fags in her mouth at once. I gently try to point out that people only smoke one cigarette at a time, but she insists she has been smoking for decades and she is right and I am wrong. I hate this debate every night because she gets upset and thinks I am being horrible, but I can see how close she is to causing a fire and get very scared. I would have thought a behaviour that has been so routine for so many years would be the last thing she got confused about. I guess it’s anxiety, she has always been anxious about making sure she has a fag, that she is now preoccupied with it. This illness affects people in unexpected ways, doesn’t it?
Anyone else out there caring for a long-term smoker? The one thing we thought mum wouldn’t forget after 61 years of smoking is how to light a cigarette. She gets through 3 lighters a day by flicking them on and off but holding the lighter too far away. She sometimes tries to “light” the remote control, handset for the phone, or other lighters. She puts three fags in her mouth at once. I gently try to point out that people only smoke one cigarette at a time, but she insists she has been smoking for decades and she is right and I am wrong. I hate this debate every night because she gets upset and thinks I am being horrible, but I can see how close she is to causing a fire and get very scared. I would have thought a behaviour that has been so routine for so many years would be the last thing she got confused about. I guess it’s anxiety, she has always been anxious about making sure she has a fag, that she is now preoccupied with it. This illness affects people in unexpected ways, doesn’t it?