I’m a double-amputee. I’m having a finger amputated next week.

I’m responsible for the loss of my legs and the future loss of my finger.

Regardless of my promise to stop smoking after my first heart attack and open-heart surgery, I continued to smoke. Regardless of my promise to stop smoking when my son was born, I continued to smoke.

Years and years passed and I continued to smoke.

I had two more heart attacks and two more open-heart surgeries. I continued to smoke.

My toes began to die. I continued to smoke.

My right leg was a complete, above the knee, amputation. I continued to smoke.

My left leg was amputated ‘below the knee’ — around my ankle. I continued to smoke.

My left stump was amputated above the knee. I continued to smoke.

Four years ago I stopped smoking.

My legs won’t grow back. The majority, but not all, of my physical ailments are due to smoking for over forty years.

I’m not really upset about losing my finger. I just worry about losing them all.

I’ve known too many paraplegics in my life. Maybe it’s because I live with the invisible-people, most of the paraplegics that I’ve know have suffered the loss of movement because of being shot in or close to their spinal cords.

Am I a ‘survivor of cigarettes?’

Are my friends ‘survivors of bullets?’

I only want to say that we are sometimes responsible for what we do and where we choose to be. That is certainly not true for those victimized by harmful/unethical therapists.

I would like to ask, though, why you felt that you had to stay with the harmful/unethical therapist? I think that’s a legitimate question that should be more cathartic than painful? Kinda like gettin’ down to the real soul?