Nobody’s posted on Rush Limbaugh’s lung cancer diagnosis. Someone who denied the ill effects of smoking being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer pretty much speaks for itself. It’s a rotten, horrible disease and I wouldn’t even wish it on him.
Anyway, I have a prediction: he will be dead very soon. I base my poorly informed guess on two things: he smoked for a long time, and therefore his lungs were already damaged prior to the cancer, and stage IV is really, really bad (both lungs involved, plus metastases, 10% five-year survival).
Let’s drill in on the damage smoking does, for a moment. A lot of society treats it like a trip to the casino: Some people smoke. The losers get lung cancer, heart disease, COPD, etc. The winners don’t.
But that’s not how it works. My uncle, a great guy, was a heavy smoker. He died a miserable fucking death not from cancer, heart disease, COPD or anything like it. It started with back surgery that just wouldn’t give him relief. It continued on to this odd disease called normal pressure hydrocephalus, which is where the normal pressure of the fluid around the brain crushes it. I discussed his health with my dad, a doctor, and Dad pointed out that the continued smoking was causing his problem with healing – nicotine constricts the blood vessels, which of course prevents tissue from healing. Dad felt from his clinical experience that chronic nicotine use has a lasting effect on circulation, even with heavy smokers who quit. (I don’t know if there’s research on that.) He also guessed the hydrocephalus was caused by smoking, but wasn’t sure.
Since there are so many obviously bad things about smoking, they don’t get around to telling you that even if you “win” by not getting cancer, COPD, etc., you still lose because your general health is fucked.
Rush, unfortunately, will find out just how bad smoking was for his general health when he can’t breathe with his damaged remaining lung capacity. My mom was diagnosed with stage 2/3 lung cancer (single lobe involvement, probable lymph node involvement) over two years ago, at 81. She had never smoked in her life, was active and maintained a healthy weight, and doesn’t even need high blood pressure medication. She’s still alive, after tolerating two rounds of chemo, and radiation for bone metastases. Why? Because she’s tough, but also because she’s still able to breathe fine with the remaining 3 lobes of her still-healthy lungs.
When I see her next, I’ll tell her about Rush’s demise, and I’m sure she’ll say, “that poor man.” And I will agree.
JaySinWA
Somehow, I suspect even then he will be in denial that smoking did this to him. I just can’t see Rush becoming a private convert, let alone a public spokesman about smoking hazards
ETA, the PSA about general smoking health issues aside from cancer is a good message.
trollhattan
I’m pulling for your mom and will leave it at that.
And fuck cancer. And the tobacco industry. Which should not exist and yet does.
Aardvark Cheeselog
My old man toughed it out without going to a doctor until he couldn’t, at which point his (smoking-related) lung cancer was at stage IV. He lasted less than six months. He died on a morphine drip: the last thing I heard him say was “I didn’t know it would hurt so bad.”
A Ghost To Most
Obligatory thoughts and prayers.
jharp
Here in northern Alabama (aka as Indiana) smoking is banned in the workplace including bars. You know. Secondhand smoke and all. Worker protections.
Except if you work in casino. I guess either casino smoke is harmless or it’s pretty much a fuck you and your health if you need your casino job.
trollhattan
@Aardvark Cheeselog:
Lord, that had to be hard on everyone–you, your family and especially your poor dad. This is not the exit any of us wishes.
My dad was diagnosed only after he was admitted with pneumonia and they found a portion of one lung blocked by the tumor. It had spread and that was that–they shrank the tumors with radiation to reduce symptoms.
JaySinWA
@A Ghost To Most: Ditto
rikyrah
Both my parents had lung cancer.
My father had it back when the word cancer was a death sentence. They removed one lung, and he lived 30 more years. Winters in Chicago were awful for him.
My mother had quit smoking 25 years when she was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. She was gone within six months.
Old School
Damn windmills.
evodevo
My mother-in-law AND father-in-law both smoked like chimneys, and both died of lung cancer. In my mother-in-law’s case, they operated to remove the tumor(s), and left her with what they thought was enough lung tissue to survive. Wasn’t. The remaining lung tissue was so damaged by smoking she couldn’t get enough oxygen to manage. My husband took a lesson from watching them and quit smoking 25 years ago.
Wag
I agree with dad about the he under appreciated bad effects of nicotine. True, it doesn’t cause cancer, but the impacts on would healing can be significant. And now, thanks to vaping we get to see a longitudinal study of the isolated effects of nicotine delivery systems on out societal health care system. No cancer, just the vascular effects! Whee!
M31
fark.com had this headline: “Stage IV Lung Cancer announces it has Rush Limbaugh”
John Revolta
I don’t get how he supposedly only just found out about this a couple of weeks ago? A guy with his money, his doctors don’t catch his cancer until it’s stage 4? wtf
Wag
@jharp:
what’s one more bet when you’re in the casino?
r€nato
I am aware how bad of a habit smoking is (I actually cringe a bit when I see people light up). It’s fucking terrible to slowly suffocate to death or worse yet, be permanently short of breath but slowly perish of other diseases.
and yet… I am still feeling a tremendous sense of schadenfreude over this news, 24 hours later. He asked for it. He flat-out denied secondhand smoke is bad; he questioned and minimized the dangers of smoking itself. He spent his life peddling hatred for profit, literally splitting families and the country itself apart over partisan politics. He will, sadly, never have crushing debt and bankruptcy piled upon the misery of dying from his lung cancer.
I will save my sympathies for his audience, the people who very well may end up broke if they get cancer (even with “good” insurance). They could have had single-payer healthcare to at least take the financial stress out of the burden of falling ill, but he agitated against that and pushed his listeners to push politicians to never give them single-payer.
All of that is a long-winded way of saying: fuck him, I hope he spends months and even years fighting this cancer before it finally takes him. This news made my entire week. I had forgotten about the horrible things he said about Sandra Fluke and Eric Garner and even Michael J. Fox. The glee I am feeling might even make it possible to get through the SOTU speech tonight. I never wished death or disease upon him, but if it absolutely had to take someone then I’m glad it was him and for once not somebody who spent their finite and much-too-short time on this plane of existence bringing joy to others such as Bowie and Prince and Tom Petty. There are some people without whom the world is a slightly better place. I think I would put pedophile priests ahead of Rush in that category, but just barely.
And with that, I will leave you with this:
Arizona Man Allegedly Threatened Schiff
MJS
@jharp: There might be a few exceptions, but I think casinos are successful everywhere they operate in getting politicians to carve them out of no-smoking laws. Here in PA, it’s pretty much only the casinos and the private clubs (e.g., VFWs) that are exempt, although some bars that serve little to no food are also exempt.
WereBear
When I was in grade school we had a lady come to see us at Assembly who had to breathe through a hole in her throat. She “talked” by burping, kind of. Really needed the mike.
Never forgot her. That was good of her.
The Dangerman
Went for a reasonably long hike today (new trails just opened in Pismo area, called the Pismo Preserve, IIRC; heartily recommended, some glorious panoramic shots of the coast from Point Sal to Point San Luis). Never smoked (OK, half a cigarette once; wasn’t interested) so my lungs had best be in great shape (for growing up in a heavy smog zone, anyway). If Rush did this to himself, well, too bad, so sad, it’s only been known that smoking is bad for you for … 50 years? Still, hate to see it happen to anyone (and RL is rumored to be a reasonably nice guy in private, as compared to his public persona, which is pure asshole).
I see Iowa, with 62% reporting, is going for the 2 men with the least chance of beating Trump. Does Iowa allow cross party voting? This feels kinda ratfucky.
JaySinWA
@JaySinWA: One family member was a never smoker who got lung cancer young and otherwise healthy. He died shortly after diagnosis. So there are no guarantees, but still poor health makes the odds worse.
mrmoshpotato
“The truth about ranch dressing revealed.”
ZERGNET is still trash.
Thanks for coming to my TEDTalk.
Aardvark Cheeselog
@John Revolta:
Denial, as they say, is not just a river in Egypt. If you don’t want to know, you can ignore it for a long time.
Wapiti
@r€nato: I’m starting to think we need to treat death threats as terrorism. Maybe the caller doesn’t have the means or the plan, but the victim doesn’t know that.
debbie
@rikyrah:
Both of my parents died from cancer related to smoking. My mother even had both kinds of lung cancer (small cell and non-small cell, removed in separate operations). The doctors couldn’t explain it and weren’t really concerned because her overall health didn’t predict a full recovery (she ended up with kidney, bone, and colon cancer along with COPD).
About 10 years after she died, I was binge watching Mad Men. The DVD extra was about the history of cigarette advertising. At one point, the industry’s deceptions about safety are detailed, and it was mentioned that one of the brands (Kent) hid the fact that their “Micronite” filter was actually asbestos. That was the brand my mother smoked for years. Fuckers.
HumboldtBlue
I smoked far too much and for far too long to think that it won’t come back to haunt me. Was able to quit in January 2014.
In other news, the Russians, despite interfering in our elections and buying out the GOP have also cheated enough that not only is Russia banned from the Olympics the Russians have also been banned from the World Cup in 2022. (just realized the announcements for both bans were made at the same time)
Kent
I had a co-worker and good friend die of lung cancer when she was in her 40s and who left behind a teenage son. She had never smoked a cigarette in her life and spent her whole life living in Alaska where the air is reasonably clean compared to say Houston. She was gone in less than a year and it was an ugly way to go.
So it doesn’t always just strike old smokers. And I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. But fuck, the links between smoking and lung cancer are about as close or closer than any other possible behavior and disease except perhaps AIDs and unprotected sex. I mean we all know of 100 different things that aren’t healthy. But there really isn’t any other thing you can point to in life that has a closer link to cancer than smoking. At least nothing I can think of. So when Rush spent all his years down-playing the links he was either just lying to himself, or being his usual turd self.
WereBear
My god, that is SICK.
WaterGirl
@WereBear: My first awareness came when one of the major characters on Perry Mason got cancer for smoking. It was Hamilton Burger, I believe, and he did commercials about the dangers of smoking.
That’s how little WaterGirl remembers it, anyway.
trollhattan
@The Dangerman:
The kid and spouse visited your berg last week and the reports are quite positive. She (the kid) left here with the flu so didn’t have the greatest possible time, but likes the school, students and coach.
Spouse is basically ready to move. We could totally live there with no incomes, I’m pretty sure.
robmassing
@John Revolta:
I wouldn’t be surprised if he is one of those “Doctors? Who needs doctors? I’m a real man it’s just a cough” types.
debbie
@HumboldtBlue:
And yet Trump didn’t think that was fair because “we were probably doing it too.” NIce way to throw thousands of American athletes under the bus, Sir.
HumboldtBlue
@debbie:
He’ll do anything for Vlad.
MJS
@The Dangerman: In what possible way could someone who has made a fortune being a racist, a misogynist, a fascist (or at least the supporter of a fascist), and any other vile description you can think of, be “a reasonably nice guy”? He’s not an actor, and his hatred is not an act. It’s the real thing.
trollhattan
@WaterGirl:
Yul Brenner also did a solid on his way out.
With all the famous actors and entertainers mowed down by cigarettes, nobody under about 70 has any excuse.
Yutsano
Paternal grandmother died from lung cancer, although there are conflicting stories about that. Either way, she died when I was 16. Fuck cancer. Even for Rush.
Catherine D.
Cynic that I am, I don’t necessarily believe he has cancer. Show me the
birth certificatex-rays!zhena gogolia
Good for your mom. I hope she continues to do well.
germy
Tulsi Gabbard sends ‘love and best wishes’ to Rush Limbaugh
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
Yes, William Talman.
WereBear
@WaterGirl: I remember hearing about that too. William Talman. And of course, Yul Brynner.
Baud
@germy: Gotta let the base know you support them.
Dmbeaster
This story reminds me of a horrible client I once had who did so much damage with the crap that would come out of his mouth. He died passed out on a cocaine binge from vomit asphyxiation. It seemed appropriate that he finally choked on his own vomit after spewing so much on others. Never felt a moment’s pity.
I think the same of Rush, except death by vomit makes more sense for him than lung cancer. Some people merit such an end.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
Of course she does.
kindness
My SIL died a month after being diagnosed with Stage IV last winter. She was a life long cigarette smoker though. Rush won’t have too much more time to annoy us but you know he’ll try.
Karma Rush. Karma.
The Dangerman
@trollhattan:
Cool. SLO really is a glorious place (although I mentioned the hayfever yesterday, or recently, and kind feel it coming on today); it’s almost like residents know it’s particularly special and no one around here wants to be the asshole that spoils it (someone honking at a light when it turns green and driver in front doesn’t react fast enough? Honking driver HAS to be an out of towner).
West of the Rockies
The world will lose a massive gasbag of disinformation and mean-spirited bile when he dies. That is not a bad thing. I don’t think he’s got kids, so not sure he will be missed in a meaningful way. But I won’t happy-dance his departure for my own sake.
WereBear
Grading on a curve.
I wouldn’t wish this kind of misfortune on anyone, and I also don’t think it’s right to say things like “he deserves it” because perfectly wonderful people also get sick, and they don’t.
However, I do think he’s unlikely to have anyone really broken up over losing him.
In addition, I’ll never forget a classmate who did a volunteer stint at a hospice, and one day we had a conversation about his work there. He said the nice people were at peace and really great to talk to. While there was one guy who no one visited. He’d been a rotten person.
And his last weeks were consumed with fear and regret. So much so my classmate was still shaken, and said he’d never get over seeing that.
So.
notoriousJRT
I recently lost a friend (smoked until a near heart attack in his early 60’s) to esophageal cancer (first finding) that was also in lymph nodes and then discovered in his lungs. A cousin is battling lung cancer (non-smoker – genetic links), which has now moved to her liver and kidneys. The friend took the “death with dignity” route within less than a year of his diagnosis – the excruciating pain (it had moved to his neck and spine) became too much to bear and the quality of life (difficulty swallowing meant a feeding tube early on) was not commensurate with the price exacted to go on. It has been terrible watching both of them suffer set backs. My father died at 65 after smoking unfiltered Pall Malls all his life. He looked 85 when he went. I plead with all smokers in my life to quit. About 20 years ago, I offered the friend who just passed $1500 (money I did not really have) to quit. I described my father’s final days to him. It was not convincing. The near heart attack and subsequent open heart surgery was enough, but I fear the damage had already been done.
Roger Moore
@jharp:
This is a reasonable capsule summary of the way our political system works. The government wants to do good stuff, but they have to carve out exemptions for politically powerful groups who would be inconvenienced if they had to follow the same laws as everyone else.
WaterGirl
I am pretty sure I loathe Rush Limbaugh as much as anyone, but I find all these discussions about him and his illness to be really dispiriting.
With all the other soul-crushing stuff going on, these conversations are just too much for me. Somebody please wake me when it’s over and we have moved on to something less awful.
jeffreyw
@Aardvark Cheeselog: Pancreatic cancer killed my dad. His last words, per mom: “I’m so sick”.
narya
When I quit (31.5 years ago), I ended up doing smoking cessation guest spots for a long time (and still fill in if the coordinator needs me). One of the pieces that often doesn’t get mentioned is that it’s not (only) that smoking can shorten your life, it’s also that it often makes the tail end worse. Also: bladder cancer, since that’s where a lot of the chemicals get filtered. Three cases of that in my family (none of the three are blood-relatives of each other), and all were smokers.
John Revolta
@Aardvark Cheeselog: Yeah, I suspect it’s something like that. Still, it seems like they could have caught it earlier when something might’ve been done about it.
Mandalay
@germy: I wonder if Gabbard is hoping for a Trump victory in November? Trump could give her a do-nothing job in his next administration to show that he can reach out and work with Democrats.
And Gabbard would then decide to become a Republican, sadly telling the media that “…the Democrat Party left me“.
Steeplejack
I was just thinking yesterday how nice it was to come home from the Super Bowl party and not smell like cigarette smoke. I was surprised that the thought even occurred to me. And I realized that it has been years since I have been around any smokers at all, except in the most fleeting circumstances.
Rand Careaga
My stepfather, one of nature’s gentlemen, was a lifelong smoker. He quit a week before his death, purchased a number of nicotine patches, checked himself into the hospital and died of lung cancer overnight. He should have listened to Yul Brynner.
Myself, I started smoking at thirty when I was assigned to an office in which the head man smoked. I quit on my fiftieth birthday early in the present century, and hope that I can dodge that bullet—although I’ve already had cardiac issues that have required surgical intervention.
Steeplejack
@Aardvark Cheeselog:
You would think an annual physical would be required for his no doubt bazillion-dollar insurance policy.
dnfree
@Kent: radon is often a cause of lung cancer in non-smokers and it certainly kills some young healthy people. It’s common in homes in northern Illinois. In the old days people didn’t spend much time in their basements, and homes weren’t air-tight like they are now. Now people have family rooms in the basements of their well-sealed homes.
I don’t know about other places, but radon testing is required for real estate sales in Illinois and remediation is required if it measures above a certain level.
WereBear
@John Revolta: For one thing, there’s toxic masculinity. For another thing, the doctor will tell him to quit smoking, and he knows he won’t, because he’s an emotional toddler. For a third thing, it can have hidden symptoms until it’s too late.
We’re making it into a PSA (since the networks don’t do that anymore, I gather) and so some good will come of this event.
Roger Moore
@John Revolta:
Many cancers of the internal organs are hard to detect. You can’t see them, and most internal organs don’t have much in the way of nerve endings, so you can’t feel when there’s something wrong. You only realize you have cancer when it impacts the organ’s function, and by that point it has often had a chance to metastasize.
Steeplejack
@HumboldtBlue:
Good on you for quitting. I’ve heard that it’s a tough addiction to break.
The Dangerman
@MJS:
Only sharing what I’ve been told; I don’t know the man (thank goodness). As for “act”, he’s a shock jock. Same as Howard Stern (who I also hear is nothing like his public persona and who I also don’t know in the least).
Death Panel Truck
My cousin died of lung cancer that went to his brain at age 47, nine years ago. We grew up together, only 11 miles apart, in different towns. I was a year older than him. We both started smoking at the same time (12 or 13, not heavily until after high school). He was diagnosed in December 2010, and died six months later. The radiation and chemo got rid of the lung tumor, but he had 15 tumors in his brain. After his death, a company in Oregon obtained his brain for study (they paid for his cremation).
I smoked for 25 years. April 3rd will be 20 years since I quit. I think about lung cancer every day.
West of the Rockies
@Mandalay:
She’s not running for her seat, so not sure how long she’ll be around for such a cross-party transfer.
Kelly
My father smoked Camel straights from the time he was a teen until he died of a heart attack at 58. Strong, capable heavy equipment operator until the day he died. Have since watched several people waste away from lung cancer and/or COPD. His 15 minutes or so from pain to peace was better.
Mart
@debbie: My mom was a devoted Kent smoker and died of lung cancer. I remeber watching the ads and thinking how cool it was that my mom smoked them.
West of the Rockies
@The Dangerman:
Personally, I think if your shtick causes pain and ignorance (through disinformation), you’re not a nice guy. You’re making a choice, taking dollars and notoriety to cause harm. YMMV.
HumboldtBlue
@WaterGirl:
I have a question about formatting if that will help distract you. It has to do with blockquotes.
Ruviana
And trump’s decided to give Rush the National Medal of Freedom, maybe as a consolation prize, per CNN.
Kent
@kindness: I would love to see him live long enough to see his hero Trump get beat by Elizabeth [Pocahontas Feminazi] Warrren
VOR
My late wife died from colo-rectal cancer. She had 7 colonoscopies and flex sigs in the 2 years prior to discovery. When they found it, the cancer was at very late Stage 3/early Stage 4. The surgeon said it was in the exact wrong spot where it couldn’t be seen by exams. One of the surgeons later told me he figured 6 months, tops, when they found it. She lasted 3 years.
I wouldn’t wish a death from cancer on anyone, not even someone who did as much damage to our country as Rush Limbaugh.
Lum’s Better Half
@West of the Rockies: Veep under Gropin’ Joe.
HumboldtBlue
@Steeplejack:
Getting there was a long time coming. I knew I had to quit long before I did and long before California made it prohibitively expensive to smoke.
I got lucky in a sense. I attended a packed press conference and stood next to a colleague who was sick with the flu.
I caught that nasty flu and it left me bed-ridden for a week. My lungs were already in horrible shape (despite 35 years of intense physical activity) and there was absolutely no way I could smoke again and I used that as a springboard to quitting.
I didn’t even go through tough withdrawals because I was so ill.
Roger Moore
@narya:
It turns out that the carcinogens in tobacco are systemic. So it doesn’t just increase your risk of getting cancer in the organs directly exposed to smoke; it increases your chances of getting all kinds of cancer.
r€nato
@The Dangerman: Stern has shown glimmers of his humanity and he’s changed over the years. He’s shown that he’s a real human being who has suffered and has had regrets. Was never a big fan of his radio show in its prime, but watched the film several times. There was a real human being inside there and he definitely had humility within him (despite some appearances).
Limbaugh, on the other hand… he might exaggerate for effect at times but I am convinced his radio show is no act. I am hard-pressed to think of when he’s shown humanity and compassion other than a brief period after he came out of rehab for his pill addiction.
RepubAnon
I plan to show Rush all the understanding and compassion he himself demonstrated throughout his career.
rikyrah
?????
Good Morning America (@GMA) Tweeted:
EXCLUSIVE: @DohertyShannen opens up about her private health battle. “I’m stage four – my cancer came back.” https://t.co/Xk9QEWWgVD https://twitter.com/GMA/status/1224682517170704384?s=20
chopper
@The Dangerman:
tho in truth LOVR can back up a bit by the target and the 101. course, that’s about the extent of it.
Gin & Tonic
@JaySinWA:
I remember Yul Brynner, in contrast.
Jeffro
I quit almost 18 years ago and with a few slips, haven’t gone back and haven’t missed it.
But then again I was kind of a wussy smoker for the 7-8 years before I actually quit. Like, 3-5 cigarettes a day. One week my wife had to travel for work, I had to watch our then 1-year-old, and I went to bed early…basically forgetting to smoke my after-dinner cigarette and a couple after that.
Woke up the next morning and was like, “huh”
I waited a week to tell my wife when she got back. I asked her if she noticed anything different and she tried to figure out what I’d done with the house until I fell over laughing.
Mandalay
@West of the Rockies: Presumably she’s going to complete her current term until next January. So she could leave Congress and immediately become Secretary of Staplers in the next Trump Administration, and then join the Republican Party after a few weeks.
If she doesn’t go down that path I would think her life in politics is over since I doubt if she’d find a place in the administration of any Democrat, and ever getting re-elected to Congress seems unlikely.
debbie
@The Dangerman:
You should listen to Stern’s interview of Hillary Clinton (on youtube).
rikyrah
@VOR:
I have to admit, that is one of my fears
To get something and I have been taking ‘the test/exam’ for, and it’s not caught
Incitatus for Senate
I generally subscribe to the idea that its not particularly nice to dance on someone’s grave, but there are exceptions. Look at the total human misery caused by Rush over his life, he makes a serial killer seem like a good neighbor. We’re all jerks at some point, we’re all riddled with flaws, but very few of us dedicate our entire lives to making the world a shittier, meaner, nastier place.
It’s hard to measure the damage that people like him do. Simple crimes are quantifiable in some way, how many people were hurt, financial damage, but how do you add up the decades of time, the millions of people he has influenced? You could take our worst prison, the one housing our most awful deranged criminals, and I’d bet Rush has done more damage to our society than every prisoner together.
Baud
@Mandalay: She could do Fox News.
Salty Sam
I used to do quite a bit of hospice volunteer work after my first wife passed. One thing that a counselor said stuck with me: “People experience their death in much the same way they lived their life.”
I’ve seen it to be true. It’ll suck to be Rush when that time comes.
West of the Rockies
@Lum’s Better Half:
And in what universe would that be?
Gin & Tonic
I see I’m late to the Yul Brynner party. On a brighter note, my wife adored his “King and I” performance since childhood, and we were fortunate enough to see his last run of that on Broadway.
JaySinWA
@Gin & Tonic: Rush may still have time to prove me wrong.
Brachiator
Fortunately, smoking is at an all time low.
People got the message. Progress. Damned unfortunate that the facts didn’t get hammered home sooner and faster. Too many people have suffered.
Nicole
My family was filled with smokers. The ones who never quit didn’t live to see 70. Not one of them. Lung cancer took my paternal great uncle, but my maternal grandparents died of heart attacks, as did my dad, maternal aunt and paternal uncle (either that or a stroke for my them, who all died unexpectedly at home in their sleep. My uncle was only 60). The ones who did quit are either still alive (and in their mid-70s), or made it into their 80s.
Excellent point, too, Mistermix, about how, even without lung cancer or heart attacks, smoking messes up your health. I have known some elderly smokers, but I wouldn’t have called any of them “healthy”- most of them attached to oxygen tanks, in fact.
Lum’s Better Half
@West of the Rockies: Ours.
Where Joe will heal the divisions not just in the nation, but also in the party.
Ann Marie
My older brother was a heavy smoker, just like everyone in my family except me (the youngest). One day he played golf with some friends, one of whom was an oncologist or a surgeon, I don’t remember which. Apparently the doctor spent the whole time talking about the effects he’s seen of smoking on lungs. My brother never smoked again after that day.
r€nato
@Incitatus for Senate: hear, hear.
My stepfather and I are estranged (likewise me and my mother). I blame that in large part on Rush and Fox News Channel. He listens to that Limbaugh shit in his car. I know this because whenever we get in the car with him, he quickly turns down the radio that is always on the local AM hate radio station that carries Rushbo when he does so.
It’s not partisan politics that has split us apart though it well could have if I allowed them to bait me into conversations on that matter. Surely having these hate merchants pouring resentment and bile into their heads day after day, making them mad at the world, has had a detrimental effect on our relationship. They are both retired and have money. To a great extent they still have their health. Yet they are both rather unhappy and miserable people. I’ve had the misfortune to watch how they bicker and hold numerous petty grudges against one another.
My mother has turned into a conspiracy theorist and I don’t mean 9/11; I mean she has an attitude that everyone is out to get her. I’ve been accused of all sorts of nutty things by her. For instance, for three years running she waged a war on me over phone calls. Anytime I didn’t pick up the phone when she called, it was obviously because I was intentionally ignoring her.
My stepfather is just a miserable puddle of resentment and grudges who makes up out of whole cloth offenses I’ve allegedly done to him.
They’ve always been stereotypical boomers and not at all the kind who were once hippies; in fact they’ve been fighting the war against the 60s counterculture for 50 years. But they’ve definitely gotten much worse in the past ten-ish years since they retired and have all this time on their hands… a good portion of which they spend consuming right-wing hate media.
Rush is surely not the only professional hate merchant but he was doing this shtick even before there was Fox News Channel. He spawned an entire industry of AM hate radio and countless C-list imitators in his medium and others as well as the Coulter/Hannity/O’Reilly axis of evil. I’ll go to my grave absolutely convinced that Rush Limbaugh played a significant role in splitting apart my family even though we rarely discussed politics since we all knew what a minefield that was.
WereBear
When I feared being trapped in a science fiction dystopia, I didn’t expect a satiric one.
Olivia
I have always been a rabid non-smoker. I was recently diagnosed with COPD. It’s not really bad yet but bad enough to have to spend a day now and then in the ER getting pumped full of crap trying to make it easier to breathe.
Every adult in my life growing up was a smoker. My dad died from cancer of his jaw and tongue from all the smoking and drinking he did. My mom lived to age 92, having quit smoking about 15 years earlier. She was relatively healthy when she died and had an easy death. Smoking was such a angry issue for me, and she was so defiant about smoking whenever and wherever she wanted to, that I can’t help but think wherever she is now, she is laughing at me that she got by with smoking for so many years and I ended up with the lung issue.
eclare
@r€nato: Plus Stern’s wife is a really big animal rescue activist.
John Revolta
@Jeffro: When I quit I didn’t say anything to anybody, including my wife. She didn’t figure it out for about two weeks…………and then she got mad! (She was a smoker too.) She managed to quit later on, but I felt like telling people what I was trying to do would increase the pressure and I didn’t want the scrutiny.
MomSense
One of my kayak friends was diagnosed with lung cancer. He’s getting treatment at Dana Farber and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals. He never smoked or had a family member who smoked. He was a dentist. We are all hoping for the best.
A Ghost To Most
No one gets out alive. And some people stop living long before they die. Not my plan.
Bumper
@jeffreyw: my mom died of pancreatic cancer too. She was a smoker from about age20-40, had been a non-smoker for the last 30+ years of her life. Doctors still attributed her cancer to smoking. Not her final words, but close, “I feel like I’m dying and I don’t want to.” As her caregiver, hearing her cry those words broke me up then and still affect me deeply today.
r€nato
@Salty Sam: I am very curious to see how Rush spends the time he has left. I don’t think it’s out of the question that he attempts to make amends for what he’s done. Having your mortality shoved in your face can be a real wake-up call for some people, even the unlikeliest people. I hope it occurs to him that there’s no longer any point in piling up wealth and fame. He ain’t taking any of it with him.
Cacti
I know she won’t, but I wish Ruth Bader Ginsburg would attend his funeral, as an FU to the right.
Mandalay
@Baud:
She could. Gabbard certainly is attractive enough for TV, and she could become another doormat Democrat who gets paid to sit on a panel and be mocked and patronized by right wing assholes.
A prettier version of Juan Williams.
WereBear
I completely agree. It’s no coincidence that several elderly men with good qualities, including my own father, exhibited signs of dementia by clinging to right wing media before other signs manifested. There was something seductive about dripping poison in their ear.
While Mr WereBear has never gotten over the younger people who would gather at lunchtime to “listen to Rush.” They were jerks: but which came first?
No matter how many times people would tell me, “Lighten up, he’s an entertainer, he’s funny” I would stare at them in disbelief. There were all white, of course. But some of them were women.
prostratedragon
@M31:
They stole that from me, though I’ve been trying to censor it.
Mnemosyne
As I have mentioned before, there were five (5) causes of death listed on my father’s death certificate. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM WAS RELATED TO SMOKING. Among other things, his kidney failure happened because of his uncontrolled high blood pressure DUE TO SMOKING.
My stepmother is currently struggling with severe COPD that will probably end up killing her BECAUSE OF SMOKING.
My older (step)brother died of lung cancer at 51. I suspect that it had something to do with his service in the Persian Gulf in the early 1980s, but I’m pretty sure that his smoking did not help.
I am so, so grateful that I never picked up the habit because so many people around me are now suffering from smoking-related illnesses, especially (but not only) cancer.
Smoking kills. Stop doing it.
randy khan
There are a lot of stories about people who quit smoking and still get cancer, COPD, etc., but it’s important to remember that stopping – at any time – has significant health benefits, including rapidly decreasing risks of the really bad stuff. Among other things, your blood pressure goes down, reducing both heart attack and stroke risks, within days (and one source says your heart attack risk actually drops within 24 hours), your immune system improves, and cancer risks drop by half over a period of 2 to 10 years, depending on the cancer. In some cases, after enough time your chance of getting a smoking-related disease drop to the same level as the general population. (We won’t discuss the impacts on, uh, reproductive health.)
Mandalay
Megyn Kelly tweeted this:
Kelly knew she had to say something, but she carefully kept her distance. She didn’t want to be too personal or fulsome in her tribute, nor piss off those who loathe Limbaugh.
A classic example of gutless fence sitting.
Ella in New Mexico
Limbaugh gets absolutely no compassion, no prayers, no pity from me. And not because he smoked and pretended it was ok. That’s a completely forgivable human weakness, one totally compatible with being a decent, kind and positively contributing human being who leaves behind incredible goodness in the world after they pass. No.
It’s because he has spent over 30 years breaking down the fabric of our country by shaping the Republican Right into a bitter, selfish, whiny, morality-free, hate-filled party of entitled white victim-hood who now believes that as long as it benefits your side you can cheat and lie and steal to keep power. As long as it’s for YOUR team, not the other. If you’ve ever wondered where all the people who attend these Trump rallies came from look no further than Limbaugh’s daily menu of populist right-wing fascism that served as their personal trainer.
He’s never shown a bit of remorse for the damage he’s done to individuals or the country. He never will. The only thing that can save his soul now is that he experiences true human suffering in hopes that as those last few moment’s of his life flit before his eyes his ego is crushed by the horrible realization and regret for all the evil he propagated in this world.
Only then does he have a chance of not returning in his his next life as a fucking cockroach.
Fair Economist
@Wag:
The way my vaper son coughs every morning, I’m not sure about no cancer. Maybe less, but not none.
Chyron HR
@Mandalay:
“Do what you do so well, Rush – FIGHT.”
I’m sure 2 hours a day of calling the cancer a homosexual deviant will clear it up in no time.
Cacti
May Rusty’s final days be filled with the love and compassion he always showed to others.
None.
HumboldtBlue
@randy khan:
I will, the improvement was dramatic.
Kent
FWIW, they are starting to announce Iowa results on CNN. Apparently it was Buttigieg, Sanders, Warren, Biden, Klobuchar in that order with 60% of the results in.
I expect another thread is due up soon if anyone is paying attention.
MobiusKlein
May his suffering be short.
Mnemosyne
@Olivia:
My ex-sister-in-law’s mother who never smoked in her life has a lung condition that mimics COPD. I can’t remember what it’s called, but she has to get gamma globulin treatments for it?
Argiope
@randy khan:
(We won’t discuss the impacts on, uh, reproductive health.)
This is actually one of the most motivating smoking cessation messages we can provide to men, I think: that smoking reduces blood flow to the penis (are we allowed to say that word now?), eventually resulting in erectile dysfunction. Dudes who don’t give a rip about their hearts because they plan to just “wait for the big one and go out fast” will reconsider when they hear Mr. Happy may fail years before the rest of them does.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
I’m still convinced that my mother got breast cancer because of x-ray exposure as a dental hygienist. She trained for it in the early 1960s when they weren’t nearly as careful about x-ray exposure as they should have been. None of her female relatives ever had it, even the one who smoked like a chimney.
Gravenstone
@Aardvark Cheeselog: My grandfather was a 2+ pack a day smoker (plus the occasional pipe and rare cigar). Because his doctor was a hack, the cancer was quite advanced by the time it was recognized. It’s a horrible disease, and if Limbaugh is in anywhere near that condition, he faces a very painful end of life.
Jeffro
So it looks like trumpov is going to give Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
At this point, everything he does to inflame me/us/all Dems is actually a gift. I’m going to try and keep telling myself that.
HumboldtBlue
@Ella in New Mexico:
I worked for an employer who was one of the first to syndicate Limbaugh’s program and he repaid that with several visits to the Lost Coast.
Watching them spill their crocodile tears after Limbaugh was (finally) roasted for being a complete ass when he went after Sandra Fluke.
They were completely taken by surprise because at the very loud and persistent backlash because it happened in the new digital age and his poison spread far wider than just the listening audience. They were shocked people responded with disgust and anger, people “who don’t even listen to our station.”
Suzanne
So I just saw that Dampnut is going to give Rush the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
I’m not going to lie: I laughed. Because nothing means anything anymore.
smedley the uncertain
Trump to award Limbaugh the Presidential Medal of Freedom! WTF?
Olivia
@Mnemosyne: It would be interesting to know more about that. I will add that possibility to my research list.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Suzanne: there was a time I thought something like that would blow back on him
Jeffro
@Jeffro:
@Suzanne:
@smedley the uncertain:
First by milliseconds! ;)
I think I’m going to have to make Limbaugh’s final resting place a pit stop on my way to trumpov’s, and for the same purpose. He can wear that ‘medal’ for all eternity too.
scav
Freedom to abuse and denigrate others is 100% the much-vaunted renewed ‘mercan greatness. As Limplung’s in the news already, of course Trumpy will jump on his coattails to grab a cycle.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Same. You almost have to admire his cult figure status.
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
We still aren’t as careful as we should be about radiation exposure. The allowable levels are more about accommodating certain industries and not about health.
Mandalay
He certainly did. This was his non-apology after calling her a slut and a prostitute:
To be clear, Limbaugh’s “attempt to be humorous” was to call Sandra Fluke a “slut” and a “prostitute”.
trollhattan
@randy khan:
This recent story about little reservoirs of undamaged cells that can repair the lungs is encouraging for smokers wishing to quit.
Vaping among youth is arguably one of the most concerning health trends today. “It’s not as bad as smoking” while true, is still a poor risk management decision. Kids.
HumboldtBlue
@Mandalay:
For context, this was an employer that also employed a son. One of the first phrases out of his mouth when he and I got to talking about locations in town was “you mean over there by n****r Joe hill?” Literally the first conversation we had.
I first ran into this “racist white guy thinks my white ass is racist also” was in the military and I was fucking floored. I then quickly learned the rest of the country was not very much like my family and circle of friends growing up.
debbie
@Mandalay:
He was as sincere as Atwater. Fuck them both.
Ruviana
@WereBear: It’s to help cheer you up. :)
JaySinWA
While I hope it is true, we really don’t know enough to be sure. There are fewer of the known toxins that come from smoking, but a whole new set of chemicals an vapor in lungs that haven’t passed the test of time
Not to mention behavioral differences between smoking and vaping. Is it more frequent? is there more nicotine delivered?
WereBear
@Ruviana: It certainly is a case of I have to laugh, or I’d cry.
Which I do plenty of.
Ruviana
@r€nato: Since you mentioned “boomer” I’m assuming 60s-70s? Could either or both be suffering from dementia? It can sometimes manifest as paranoia which can freak out other family members. Full disclosure, I’m a boomer, in fact my 68th birthday is tomorrow.
BethanyAnne
It’s 6:30, and Antonin Scalia is still dead.
Kent
Was talking to my 85 year old father the day before yesterday. He’s a life-long Democrat, civil rights activist in the early 60s, retired teacher, etc.
Out of the blue asked me “What’s with Hillary lately…she seems really angry”
I did some probing because the question seemed out of the blue and turns out he spends time with my uncle (his brother) who I know to be a loyal Rush listener. So the poison leaks out everywhere. Even to people who don’t actually ever listen. That is how this shit works.
The Pale Scot
I thought of Bill Hicks the moment I heard of this.
debbie
@Ruviana:
Let me be the first to wish you happy birthday!
Elizabelle
@Ruviana:
May it be posthumous. (For both of them would be minty.)
Elizabelle
@Ruviana: Happy Birthday Eve!
Cermet
Can’t be happier about russ’s cancer; may he suffer as much as possible. He is a cancer on our country. Many people will live better lives once that pile of shit no longer posions our ari-ways. As other posters point out, he started the whole hate radio – i.e. poor to middle class white males are the real minority that holds the country together but are shit on by the browns, blacks and intellectuals (any one with some or graduated college) who are destroying our way of life.
Smoking and its toxians pollute the body and these deadly chemicals do terrible harm from a cellular level to organs and arterial walls; cancer and heart attacks are just the most common and well understood effects – second hand smoke does cause pre-mature heart attacks in non-smokers, too. Nicotine is, beyound any measure, THE most addicting drug that exists – people who quit show will power that I’m in awe of.
Cermet
Vaping is very likely not much less dangerous than smoking – why? Because most all those users use a burning filter that provides the taste smokers love and all the deadly tar and secondary toxic chemicals found in cirgarettes. One way to reduce the ill effects is to vape without that burning posion producing device. Of course, as we just found out, added flavors like Vit E can be deadlier than anything used before – fun being the test subject of medical studies in the future on death rates and vaping.
Cheers.
chopper
@smedley the uncertain:
why not? i mean, he called 13 year-old chelsea clinton ‘the white house dog’. that sort of shit is right up trump’s alley. unless he thinks the girl is ‘hot’. then he’d take issue.
PsiFighter37
Apparently Trump wants give Rush the Medal of Freedom. Talk about rendering the honor completely meaningless by doing something like that.
Barbara
@Bumper: My dad died of pc as well. It is estimated that at 1/3 of pancreatic cancer cases are attributable to smoking. There may be a genetic component, but the cellular damage caused by smoking likely exacerbates genetic vulnerabilities. My dad smoked and grew up in a coal mining community, also highly correlated with high cancer rates. Unlike lung effects, the damage done by smoking at the cellular level to intestinal and head and neck structures does not appear to ameliorate over time.
As for why stage 4 without prior diagnosis. My brother died three weeks after being diagnosed, which didn’t happen until brain metastatis. There is a good chance Limbaugh’s cancer is already there, because that is how lung cancer spreads. Cancer can be very stealthy.
The Pale Scot
@notoriousJRT:
I’m in my 50’s. Three of my four best friends are already gone from cancer, Only one of them smoked, the other 2 were kidney and breast. If it gets me I’m flying up to a corner I know in Newark NJ and score a couple of grand worth of horse. Getting proper pain management for my mother was fight I’m not going to go thru. What the fuck, she was dying.
Brachiator
@PsiFighter37:
Posthumously?
Ruviana
Thanks @debbie and @elizabelle for the birthday wishes and I really like the double posthumous award idea!
germy
PsiFighter37
@Brachiator: I think he will try to put it on him before he croaks. Still hugely dishonorable.
zhena gogolia
Barbara
@notoriousJRT: Esophageal cancer is one of the fastest increasing cancers among Caucasian men in the US with no real explanation as of yet.
JustRuss
Yep. Smoked through my 20s, then attended a medical conference where just about every presenter discussing the horrific disease he or she was working on said “…and we never see this in anyone under 60…except smokers, of course.” Within two months I had quit.
germy
@Barbara: GERD?
Omnes Omnibus
In the words of Will Munny, ” Deserve’s got nothin’ to do with it.”
Eunicecycle
@Mandalay: and IIRC, Sandra was testifying about using BC pills for ovarian cysts, NOT to have sex every day, as Rush implied. Also he had no idea how BC pills worked and seemed to think you took one every time you had sex. He went on and on about how much sex she must be having because she needed so many pills, which was so disgusting and vile.
Brachiator
@PsiFighter37:
Oh, I was trying to slip in some snark without actually wishing Limbaugh ill.
Mohagan
My father was a life-long smoker and finally stopped when his body metaphorically fell off a cliff after he caught a bad flu bug. He came from strong peasant stock (Irish and German) – so his body put up with the abuse until about age 65. He died at about 80 yo of emphysema, which is a horrible way to go – you basically suffocate. My mother only smoked about 6 years (while she was married to my father – in self-defense she always said) and quit when she was about 40 yo. She had heart problems for 10-15 years before she died but basically had a good healthy life and died at almost 96.
Spanky
@germy: Neck beards.
senyordave
@Eunicecycle: Maybe he thought that she was engaging in deviant sex. You know, sex between two consenting ADULTS.
The Pale Scot
@r€nato:
I do, the fucker gonna dbl down, he doesn’t have to worry worry about ratings. He’ll do everything he can to get The Creature re-elected
Mohagan
Forgot to add I had a wonderful woman who did my taxes and she smoked like a chimney. Her house smelled terrible (she had a home office). She died of a sudden heart attack in her 50s. So sad – she was such a nice person – I had never known someone who was my age or younger to die like that until her.
Ohio Mom
Barbara @148: Yes, there can be a genetic component to some cases of pancreatic cancer.
One of the BRCA gene variations (I can never remember if it’s BRCA1 or 2) predisposes you to pancreatic, and depending on your gender, ovarian and prostrate cancers.
And obviously, breast cancer. Which men (particularly those with the BRCA gene) can also get.
On the subject of Rush, I’ll look forward to his demise. He will certainly be an example of the evil men do living on (I find it hard to believe there is any good that will be interred with his bones).
Jake Gibson
Rush Limbaugh is one of the reasons I hope there is a Hell.
I hope he has to suffer like my mother did when she died of cancer. I am not a nice person when it comes to scum like Limbaugh.
JustRuss
Hey, hey, hey! What did I ever do to you?
Steeplejack (phone)
I’m getting ads for herbal snuff on my phone now. ?
Barbara
@The Pale Scot: Stage 4 lung cancer is a beast and the treatment is not easy. I wouldn’t assume he will be strong enough to do much.
senyordave
@r€nato: I don’t think it’s out of the question that he attempts to make amends for what he’s done.
After he came out as an addict a lot of people assumed he would tone it down in terms of demeaning anyone who disagreed with him, anyone who was one of the “others”. Those people were wrong, he came back as bad as ever, worse if possible. I suspect he will go to his grave as the same evil pos he has always been.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Ruviana:
Happy almost birthday! ???
zhena gogolia
No hope of a new thread?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Aleta
@HumboldtBlue: I’ve read that our lungs start to recover and generate healthy cells starting from the moment one stops. Seems to be true for my cousin who stopped about 8 years ago at 60, after 2 or more packs a day starting at age 12.
Anyway, great respect to you. I’ve watched relatives and friends try to quit and it looked close to impossibly hard. From the BBC last week:
senyordave
My brother is a pulmonologist. He says lung cancer is a pretty awful way to go, some people are basically gasping for breath at the end. He used to devote one morning a month going to local schools to give anti-smoking talks, armed with a fairly gruesome powerpoint presentation. Most of the kids barely paid attention, some thought it was funny. He said one day he walked into the auditorium, asked how many of them smoked, and just said “almost all of you will die from smoking related causes, and many of you will be in agony at the end”. Then he left. Needless to say the administration was pissed.
Barbara
@HumboldtBlue: Knock on wood that you have escaped the demon curse of smoking related diseases.
HumboldtBlue
@Aleta:
Thanks, and I read that article as well. It was my brother who first mentioned to me the healing power of lungs when I was still in my 30s or so.
Again, I was somwhat fortunate in quitting because I had promised myself that if I did get very, very ill again I would use it to quit. The illness was so bad I don’t even remember quitting but I know that about two weeks after recovery I lit a cigarette and immediatelyy gagged and threw it out.
@Barbara:
I can only hope.
Ohio Mom
SenyorDave@176: I imagine the teachers were unhappy to have their free time cut off so abruptly. Instead of kicking back a bit while their students were in the assembly, they had to hurry back to their full classrooms and lesson plans.
On the other hand, your brother got every student’s attention and I bet they all remembered what he said. Sounds like a successful presentation to me.
Seanly
Fuck cancer with rusty pitchforks, but if I can’t say something nice about Rush then I probably shouldn’t say anything. So I won’t comment on Rush.
J R in WV
@The Dangerman:
Yes, IIRC, they do allow Rs to decide that they are really Dems at the time of the caucus. So ratfuckery is active!!
Dan B
@Roger Moore: There is a story about smoking in casinos that provides context, but not complete rationale. The father of my best friend worked at the Bureau of Indian Affairs decades ago. It was a den of vipers who took great pleasure in boasting about the ways they inflicted hardship on the tribes. My friends father found refuge in the library in the basement. He duscivered treaties which became the basis for sovereignty and then worked with cohorts on gaming as a way to make money. Sovereignty protected the tribes from federal gambling laws. Because the tribes had made some money from tobacco and fireworks they continued those.
So smoking is a compromise with former economic and political power. It’s lifted many tribes out of poverty but is not perfect, much like our “mainstream” politics.
Many indian guys in their 40’s were named after my friend’s father… but their names are all misspelled. Sherman Alexi, ‘Smoke Signals’ is one. The actual name is Sherwood. Imagine a batch of young indian guys named Sherwood!
Aleta
@HumboldtBlue: just one guy, but my cousin gets lung scans (on some Dr-advised schedule) and they’re 100% clear in appearance now. The change in his breathing and health was as fcking dramatic as the coming of spring.
Damned at Random
@Kelly: My story too. My Dad died suddenly at age 53 after a (short) lifetime of smoking. I was 10 and thought it was a great catastrophe, of course. But in retrospect, he lucked out.
If you can’t quit for yourself. quit for your family
Immanentize
@senyordave: At my school in the 60’s, they brought in a cancerous smoker’s lung in a glass jar for all of us to see. And, oddly, I remember the smell too
My father died of pancreatic cancer but that, his heart disease, and his fading vigor were all related to his 3 pack a day (Benson & Hedges) habit.
Ruviana
@Steeplejack (phone): Thanks!
Roger Moore
@Damned at Random:
I’m not sure about that. There are plenty of people who would accept a painful death as the price of being able to watch their children grow up.
Dan B
@Ruviana: Happy pre-birthday! From a fellow boomer, the hippy radical fairy type (plus all sorts of other lefty activist pursuits).
Enjoy, and report if it’s memorable!
Dan B
@zhena gogolia: Oy! So I may not exist!? Rustling thru my philosophers: I tinker therefore I ham? To bee or not to bee?
Great Rudnick belly laugh. Thanks!
J R in WV
My parents smoked a lot, especially in the front seats of the family cars. Dad quit in 1960, cold turkey, had a lot of will power. Mom couldn’t stop for years after that. She had pneumonia twice one winter in Florida and the doctor told her if she didn’t quit she wouldn’t see spring. So she did.
But it didn’t really help — she had COPD not long after that, and it put her down.
Dad never had trouble attributable to his relatively brief cigarette habit.
But on my mom’s side of the family, my cousins who smoked have all died, two of them very recently. They were really close to me. Tobacco is the most hateful addictive drug we have yet discovered.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@eclare: was waiting for someone to mention this! Stern has submitted to being photographed with armfuls of black cats on a magazine cover to encourage their adoption. I’ve never seen Rushbo do anything like that.
Just Chuck
Rusty Sad Trombone
Sab
@J R in WV: My Dad taught pulmonary pathology as adjunct professor at local med school. Very high pass rate on state boards for students in his area.
He quit when he diagnosed his one and only sister with lung cancer at 51. She died a year later. He had taught her to smoke when he was 17 and she was about 15 and worshipped her older brother. He never inhaled, but she did. He couldn’t bear to look at the cancer slides.
My sister-in-law died of lung cancer at 72. She never smoked, but her husband did all the time around the house. My first father-in-law died of lung cancer at 72. He never smoked, but he worked in a smoke filled bar for his whole adult life.
My mother started smoking at age 16. She didn’t die of anything related, but we couldn’t get her into a nursing home where she would have received better care. I struggled to take care of her at home with a increasingly debilitating hereditary neurological disorder. She almost killed a wonderful nurse’s aide with heart issues from her damn passive smoke.
She finally damaged her neck in a fall and couldn’t lift her hand enough to smoke without burning her clothes. So I took her cigarettes away because she and they were a fire hazard. She cried when I took those damn things away.
r€nato
@Ruviana: thanks for asking. No dementia as far as I know. Just a couple of cranky bastards with no right to be so fucking ungrateful for what they have (especially their accomplished son who is happily married and succeeded in a more-challenging-than-usual career). 80 yrs old and 74 yrs old each
Stepfather’s son killed himself around 10 years ago and I’m convinced his father contributed significantly to the depression and rage that drove him to call his father to come to his apartment about an urgent matter, then he blew his brains out to ensure his father saw him like that.
Ruckus
As a, so far, cancer surviver, not lung cancer, and as someone who’s had a number of things frozen off of my skin, and who sees dermatology often for that reason, I wouldn’t wish cancer of any kind on anyone. My cancer was stage II so not way advanced, caught early. I sat with a number of guys in the treatment waiting room for my radiation treatment appointments, every day for 9 weeks. I do not want to have to do that again. And the actual treatment was no big deal but the mental energy, the worry that it wouldn’t work, the biopsies, the CT with radiation, the MRI, all of it, and I’m in remission…. I will discuss my cancer with a radiation oncologist every so often for the rest of my life. If it comes back……….
So, in regards to Rush Limpballs, the old saying is that if you can’t say anything nice, say nothing.
Nothing.
I smoked a bit as an idiot kid but it was very popular and everywhere decades ago. But it seemed like such a stupid thing to do that I stopped. You can imagine how glad I am that I made that decision.
Also I wrote here the other day that when I was in premed I went to USC med school on a school visit. We went to the lab to see the cadaver of the person showing us around. The lungs were gray for about the bottom 1/3. Someone asked if the person had been a smoker and the fella said no, he just lived in Los Angeles. This was in the 70s when normal visibility from smog would be less than 5-6 miles.
Mai naem mobile
@John Revolta: Rush is syndicated all over with a pretty big contract. I could swear part of these contracts was a physical because the companies want some kind of minimal assurance that you’re not going to drop dead. He’s talked about some health issues he’s had. You would have thought it would have been caught by now. Anyhow, I used to listen to Rush occasionally way way back when he started(late 80s) He was actually funny. Yeah, from the right wing but it wasn’t mean but he quickly got really mean and I stopped listening. I just saw a pic of him at the SOTU with Trumpov. Granted I don’t follow Rush so I haven’t seen a pic of him in years but he already looks like shit.
A few years a heavy smoker coworker of mine (I think she was in her 50s)developed swollen legs. She went to the ER for a possible clot and they ended up doing an xray of her lungs and found advanced cancer. I don’t remember details but she went really quickly – within a month or two. She had just gotten married to a guy who had lost his first wife to I believe cancer as well so he lost a second spouse to cancer .
Ruckus
@Ella in New Mexico:
Cockroaches do have a purpose, abet one we really aren’t sure we actually have and that is they clean up places we can’t see. Or at least that’s the concept. So no, I don’t think he’d come back as a cockroach because he’s far, far worse than completely useless. He doesn’t deserve to comeback as a cockroach. And if I were a believer of that sort of thing, he seems like the type that would go straight to hell, and not the good hell either. He’d go directly to, what is it, oh yeah, the seventh circle. But there isn’t a god, just or otherwise, so he’ll just die, like the rest of us.
r€nato
@Mai naem mobile: I, as well, listened to Rush and a lot of AM talk radio in the mid-80s to early 90s. Not because I was a right-winger, but rather I was fascinated with the then-newish phenomenon. Eventually I got fed up with, had my fill, it was just more of the same.
He was indeed amusing at times, though I would say that ‘feminazi’ wasn’t simply a joke. His misogyny was already on clear display.
I don’t think it was until after I stopped listening that he amped up the hatred and bile. I would say that was driven by the legions of C-list local AM radio hosts (listened to those as well) and syndicated imitators like Michael Savage who felt less compunction about being slimy pieces of shit. That, and of course losing St. Ronnie’s White House to the Clintons drove Rush off the deep end.
I do recall that he was always a huge liar and deceiver. Like, when he wasn’t lying he was telling half-truths at best. There was never anything honest about the guy’s shtick. It’s one thing to have a point of view and cite facts that support your POV. Quite another to just twist the truth into pretzels and lie the rest of the time to support your POV.
Read all of the comments upthread about how nasty a bit of business cancer is. Still not sorry he came down with the C. He practically begged for it. He can change my mind if he uses his remaining months to make up for the damage he’s done.
steve alcott
I hope he suffers for a long time.
Mai naem mobile
@r€nato: I’ve always been a big radio person and when Rush first started there were several liberal and middle of road people on the radio – local and national. Rush came in and just took the airwaves over with right wing radio. I was thrilled when Air American came in but they didn’t last and radio on the left is down to a handful of national hosts. Meanwhile there’s a million no talent right wingers repeating the same party line white privilege white resentment crap. Jeezus, STFU already. I am so glad for Sirius XM and smartphone radio apps. BTW I think Rush is an awful awful person but I just can’t get myself to tell him to suffer with the cancer etc. The only person I used.to give myself permission to says shit about is Dick Cheney. I’ve since added Trumpov and McConnell to the list.
laura
His journey will strip away every veneer of artifice and he will either face his life’s actions and seek redemption or die as he’s acted. I can’t wish suffering on him as much as I revile his impact on others.
Ruckus
@Mai naem mobile:
I said my peace about rush. But he’s as responsible for where we are, just like Bush, Cheney, Newt, mcconnell, trump – who is where he is because of the conservative party and people like rush who helped push it in the direction it’s been going for the last 100 yrs or more. rush made it acceptable to be that big of an ass. Without rush and others like him, faux news, Sinclair, FTFNYT, normalizing this bullshit of racism, hate and wealth makes right, we wouldn’t be here. There’s a list and several presidents are on it, rush is on it, major “news” organizations are on it, they, among many others have been pushing the country in this hateful, despicable direction all of my 70 yrs.
parvenu and improved
I have lost family members, friends, neighbors to cancer.
And I say this:
I hope he dies a long slow agonizing suffocating death.
He’s earned it. Even more so if it was just an act.
And by the way, for those of us old enough to remember — and take notice — only white people thought he was funny back in the late 80’s.
He was never funny. He was always mean. Mean, resentful, and bigoted.
So many better people who did so little to harm others have died a long slow agonizing death. I only wish this unworthy die at least as badly and painfully as they did.