The 47 Shigaretto

Its 2015, I'm sweating haven't bathed in days disheveled, drawn, scruffy beard, pale and sickly, flabby looking every minute and more of my 51 years (as I'm fond of saying it's not just the years it's the mileage)

A murder* of Cardiology residents is arranged at the foot of my Hospital bed.

The alpha dog in the bunch, like something out of Central Casting, willowy, piercing green eyes, red hair, beautiful beyond belief and the absolute epitome of confidence and professionalism currently a third year fellow at Boston University Medical Center  breaking hearts and cracking chests, that's my VA doctor thank you very much.  How much love did her mother withhold to construct that overachiever?

Julianne Moore can play her in the movie of my life

"Mr. Guidry" she says Consulting her clipboard "you've just had a heart attack, you have significant blockage in several of your coronary arteries. We've put a stent in one, corrected another with angioplasty.  You have 60% blockage in another will have to keep an eye on but the overall prognosis is good if you make some changes.
let's see...

You are over 50
you are overweight
you smoke
and you use cocaine

Mr. Guidry you need to pick one."
"Pick one?" I ask
"Yes....one."

I weakly and hesitantly I reply "over 50?"

That's the correct answer.  Basically if I want to continue to be over 50 I have to stop smoking using drugs and lose weight it ain't rocket surgery but then again I'm hard-headed a drug addict and I'm a cockroach apocalypse so I needed some more convincing.

Died at 33 cocaine overdose

Died at 33 heart attack exacerbated by cocaine and heroin use

But it's not like I didn't know.

1998 my first trip to rehab father Martin's Ashley the room I slept in had been the room Chris Farley had stayed in he was dead a few months later 

Talk about the Ghost of Christmas future his fucking name is "Farley" for God's sake  but I couldn't see the writing on the wall then almost 20 years later  I'm still making the same bad choices.

It took two more significant cardiac events just shy of a heart attack over the next two and a half years.  For me to even consider it.  I'm again a miserable mess back in rehab lucky to be alive.

Something has to change and that something is everything.

So I'm announcing today I have 47 cigarettes.

They're the last 47 cigarettes I will ever smoke.

I'm going to announce it in every meeting I go to; let the people in my house/community know.  I'll also let the people I work with know but I should be fully quit and well indoctrinated in the I don't smoke anymore mindset by the time I get back to work in a few weeks.

Don't give me a cigarette and for real for real don't ask me for a cigarette....

I'm going to smoke every one of these 47 cigarettes I'm going to enjoy them I may actually number them and blog about them individually.

However when they're done that'll be the end of it.  I want to live and that means taking care of myself this is one step in that direction.

So that's it a quick short post.  I'm working on a complicated, deeply thought provoking post that starts with a YouTube video of a Cheech and Chong song so there's that to look forward to....updates as they occur stay tuned for traffic and weather on the eights

*They're a "murder" because they are "residents".  If they were already surgeons they be a "pride" eh... may be a "wake" as that's what a group of vultures is called.