Hi friends! I just want to thank you all who have reached out to me to tell me just how valuable to find this weekly Massey’s Magazine to your inbox. This is the 10th edition, so those of you who are new to following me, you may not realize this is a new thing in our world, but I had a number of folks request I do this, and I have thoroughly enjoyed creating this each week. Glad so many find it enjoyable and a valuable addition to your week.
I’m going to briefly shift gears from my typical nutrition focus this week, as I noticed a lot of new articles about studies done in the world of eCigarettes and Vaping. This subject has been near and dear to my heart as an ER Nurse who took care of a young fella—17 years old—a number of years ago who left quite a massive imprint on my heart.
This young man says he never touched a cigarette, and his poor momma sat in my triage booth crying with tremendous guilt because she had “allowed” him to use eCigarettes and Vape ever since he was a younger adolescent. Her tearful words to me were, “he was rebellious, and I thought if he was going to smoke no matter what I said, I’d rather it be these fruity smelling things instead of nasty cigarettes. I thought they were the lesser of two evils.”
Well, this child, not even out of high school, now REQUIRED constant oxygen and every small cold turned into massive life-threatening pneumonia, as if he had been in his 80’s and smoking his whole life. He never even had childhood asthma. The damage done to his lungs from inhaling “the lesser of two evils” was devastating, and I thought about so many other moms who maybe decided that wasn’t a battle they were going to wage in their homes when they had so many other battles to choose from when raising teens.
The Pulmonologist tending to him explained to me that this new foreign substance people were inhaling was creating nodules and “pockets” in people’s lung tissue unlike anything they’d even every seen in years of cigarette smoking. Oftentimes these “flavors” that are in the vape juice are made up of fragrances and chemicals not ever intended to be safe for inhalation. But, yet, oftentimes it’s “fun” flavors like cotton candy and fruit punch that drew these kids in to begin with. Ironic at best; devastating and disgusting is a better description, though.
This is an article about Vaping from the American Lung Association.
