Smoking victim stays positive, shares his hope, faith
May 2,2006
By GARY CORSAIR, DAILY SUN
FRUITLAND PARK — The little girl walks to the rear of the Fruitland Park Kingdom Hall and boldly approaches the gaunt man with the tube running into his nose from the oxygen tank at his side.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asks with the innocence of a child.
Without pause, the man replies, “I smoked too many cigarettes.”
Not, “I’m sick.” Or, “I need this to breathe.” Rather, “I smoked too many cigarettes.”
No sugar-coating. No beating around the bush.
You learn to answer succinctly when the price of each breath is effort. You carefully weigh your words before speaking them when you need a machine to pump air into lungs withered from 30 years of two packs a day.
“I was already smoking when I moved here when I was 14. Had been for quite a while. Camel non-filters. As an adult, I smoked at least two packs a day,” said Cecil Sangster from the recliner that serves as the center of his universe.
He shares the recliner with chronic emphysema, which has been trying to kill lungs once used to sing country and western songs with a voice clear and strong. It was a voice that took him from Weirsdale to a Nashville recording studio, where he cut a single that went nowhere.
It was the voice he used to thunder, “Yes, sir,” when he was in the Air Force. The voice he used to sell mobile homes in Wildwood, clothes in Leesburg and furniture in Callahan.
Cecil hasn’t been able to work for 20 years.
The diagnosis
Of course, Cecil would have never touched a cigarette if he could have peeked into the future. But he was like millions of others who couldn’t foresee gasping for breath as a consequence of lighting up.
“I was 46 when I was first diagnosed with shortness of breath,” said Cecil. “They took me to a doctor in Tavares, and he said, ‘Man, you’ve got a bad case of emphysema.’”
So Cecil threw away his cigarettes, right? Not exactly.
“I kept smoking for almost a year. It’s crazy, man. I just thought it was something that would pass.”
Not that the extra year made much difference. Irreparable damage was done long before the day years of inhaling tar and nicotine caught up with Cecil.
“When I was diagnosed with chronic emphysema they gave me a breathing test. The highest you could score is 71 and I scored 14,” recalled Cecil. “They sent the results to Tallahassee, and they said, ‘Your machine is broken. Have him retake the test.’”
Cecil blew a 14 on the retest. Same score on a third test. Cecil was declared totally disabled.
His life has been a regimen of medicines, inhalers, nebulizers, green metal cylinders and delivered meals ever since. And oddly enough, lots of smiles and laughs.
“I’m a survivor,” Cecil says through an ear-to-ear smile.
Cecil is more than a survivor; he’s a survivor’s survivor.
Prostate cancer and 40 radiation treatments. Pneumonia. Twice. Irregular heartbeat. Medication poisoning. Kidney dialysis. Collapsed lung — five times last year. He can’t count how many doctors were ready to bury him.
“I was in the hospital, laying there with a multiple shutdown. The doctor called my family in and told them he didn’t think I was going to make it,” Cecil said. “I called my stepson over and told him, ‘I lived my life and had a good one. If I don’t make it, I want you to take everyone out for a steak dinner. I don’t want no crying.’”
Cecil ended up buying those steak dinners when he recovered. “Cost me a fortune!” he says with a laugh.
The guardian angel
One can’t help wondering how much his ravaged body can take. Cecil turned 68 last month. He looks it, even though his mind is still 28. His lungs are at least 98.
“The first time I saw him, he was in intensive care. In the hospital. I remember thinking, ‘How could someone so young look so old?’ He was in his 50s at the time,” recalled Dolores Vinson, who was working as a nurse.
It was a passing encounter. They didn’t even meet.
The next time Dolores saw the man was at the Lady Lake trailer he lived in. Dolores, who is a Jehovah’s Witness, was in the door-to-door ministry.
You’ll never convince Cecil that Jehovah God didn’t send Dolores to his door. Not only did Dolores help him understand the Bible, she’s helped him stay alive.
“She saved my life many times,” Cecil says.
“When I first met him, the first thing we did was get him decent medical care,” Vinson recalled. “He had been going to a clinic where they were only addressing his breathing problem. His ankles were as big as my waist, and he was bedridden.”
Dolores directed Cecil to Dr. Larry Foster.
“He absolutely saved my life,” Cecil says.
With Dolores and her daughter showering him with love and support, Cecil’s physical — and spiritual — health took an upswing.
In his Bible studies, he learned scriptures like Revelation 21:1-4, which speaks of God doing away with mourning, sickness and death, and Psalms 37:9, 10 and 29, which says the meek will inherit the Earth and reside forever upon it.
Cecil, a former Baptist Sunday school teacher, was baptized as one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1990.
Sharing his hope
Cecil knows he is literally running out of breath. But he is determined to face his last gasp with dignity.
“He is always upbeat,” Dolores says. “He always sees the good in things, never the bad. He has such a positive attitude.”
Cecil’s faith is strong that one day he’ll again effortlessly run and jump with the vigor of youth.
“I think about paradise all the time,” Cecil says. “I don’t think I’m worthy. I really don’t. I just ask Jehovah not to forget me.”
The Bible truths Cecil learned motivate him to tell others about God’s promises. But he doesn’t have the strength to witness door-to-door. So Cecil devotes three hours a day to “witnessing” by telephone. His goal: 70 hours of preaching a month. Last month, he topped his goal.
“I get a lot of listeners,” Cecil says. “Most will listen, unless they’re dead set against it. I don’t read a lot of scriptures. I try to send them something that will benefit them if they read it. If they read it, good. If not, they’re the ones who lost out.”
There’s no cost involved. Cecil doesn’t make a dime. He merely wants people to learn what the Bible says about the future.
That’s why he continues to speak from the heart, whether his listener is a stranger on the end of telephone line or a little girl who can’t even pronounce the word emphysema.
“So when you get a call from me, listen to me,” Cecil says with a twinkle in his eyes.
Gary Corsair is a senior writer with the Daily Sun. He can be reached at 753-1119, ext. 7907, or [email protected].
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