Cancer can happen to anyone at anytime. Don't be fooled or pressured. When I joined the site in the spring, I had everything going right for me. I had a dream job as a Park Ranger in the Rocky Mountains, I had finished school (after 5 years!) and most of all I enjoyed smoking Marlboro Smooths and dipping Copenhagen. I tried to quit for about 2 weeks and failed. All summer and fall I developed tiny lesions along my lip. I thought my mouth was just irritated from the dip. By October I noticed myself biting my lip and the lesions growing. I fooled myself into believing that using dip and cigarettes for
only a year and a half would not give me cancer. My grandfather has chewed for 60 years and still no mouth cancer so I was immune. I considered going to a doctor, but I convinced myself that my mouth was just irritated from biting and messing with my lower lip. That is when I lost my job, and my health insurance. Not only could I not afford to go to the doctor, but that is when my mouth "bumps" started getting bigger and spreading. As of 11/5/2009 at midnight I will have only been quit 9 full days.
Here is why I won't be going back to the can under ANY circumstances. I looked up the symptoms of squamous cell carcinoma and I exhibit nearly all of them. A friend who is in medical school looked at my lip and said he thinks that its precancerous but that I should go to a Dermatologist to get a biopsy.
Dip has:
1. Cost me friends who don't want to associate with a "junkie".
2. Caused a lot of shame having to explain to family and friends why I might not survive.
3. Taken 18 months of my life and will most likely take more.
4. Emptied my wallet of thousands of dollars.
5. Forced me to get an expensive biopsy done without any insurance.
6. Made me single again. I made no effort to quit for my girlfriend.
I await my appointment on the 16th for the biopsy but will unlikely be getting any procedures done due to the cost and my job's health care doesn't kick in until July next year. (this isn't intended to be a health care reform rant by the way. Sorry if it sounds that way.)
Worst thing about it? I'm 23. It can't happen to me right? Wrong.
What I'm trying to say to all of you teenagers and twenty-somethings out there: Don't continue this habit because you could end up in my situation. Don't make the same damn mistake I have. For the love of God, you need to understand that this stuff is toxic and you are NOT immune from it. For guys older than me, quit soon because I was told the risk gets higher as you get older and chances are you have a family to care for unlike myself. Ignorance is not an excuse. I never had drug education in school about snuff and never knew much about cancer of the mouth. The only thing I recall was for a coworker in Alabama telling me that you should only quit when you develop "white patches". I never had these but one little bump turned into a whole mess of tumors and I should have gone to the doctor and dentist while I still could afford it. What started as a small bump is now a huge mess.
Its almost day 9 with no dip and I can attest that quitting is hard but you just need motivation. If a part of you still wants to dip, you will have a hell of a time quitting. I've had cravings, but disfigurement and death are not worth a couple bucks for a can of toxic chemicals to get a buzz.
If anybody here is struggling with relapses and wants some advice, do not hesitate to message me. Believe me, I know about not being able to sleep more than a few hours a night (if at all), the sweating, the raging, and trying to convince yourself that you can have just one more can. I still have the physical symptoms, but I think the psychological symptoms can go away quick. I had a craving at work today but had no desire to speed along this spread of tumors. If you need help, I will respond to your questions.
-RMH
