SMOKEOUT: CIGARETTE DREAMS, NIGHTMARES

Dave Earl smoked for 20 years before quitting in 1987.

Earl, a nuclear medicine technician at St. Francis Medical Center, gave up smoking because a patient in his care who was dying of lung cancer asked him to.

"He pleaded with me on his death bed," Earl said. "He said he just wanted to help one person quit smoking before he died.

"It was not too long after that that I gave up smoking."

Thursday was Great American Smokeout day. The event, which is sponsored by the American Heart Association, tries to get people to stop smoking for just one day.

Earl spent a portion of his afternoon Thursday walking the halls of St. Francis Medical Center with a sign draped over his shoulders that read, "Blow Bubbles Not Smoke," handing out bubble gum and talking to people about giving up cigarettes.

He met people like Joe and Evelyn Dollinger of Jackson who gave up smoking four years ago, "at the same time and we're still together."

Diana Brown, who works in the purchasing department at St. Francis, enjoys smoking but is under pressure from her family to quit. She understands why companies, and the medical center, have gone to a smoke-free policy.

"It's harder to be a smoker now because most areas are smoke free," Brown said. "But it makes sense. You have to clean up less. You don't have to repaint as often and you don't have to mess with the ceiling as much.

"I know, both my husband and I are smokers and my house already needs to be repainted."

Brown said people like Earl who profess the need to quit don't bother her. She smokes because she enjoys it and she has no real intention of ever quitting.

Rita Fornkohl said she began volunteering at St. Francis after her husband of 53 years, Arthur, died in 1992 of emphysema.

"He smoked one package a day until 1975, when the doctor told him he had to quit," Fornkohl of Jackson said. "It was interesting, when they X-rayed his lungs you could see how they had just closed off. One of them had turned plumb black and the other one had just closed up."

Iva Kuntze, who also volunteers at St. Francis, kept her husband's last pack of cigarettes in a safe deposit box for years after he quit smoking. Albert Kuntze died in 1974 of emphysema.

Sherry Hooe, a registered nurse at St. Francis, works with cancer patients every day.

"I know I need to quit. I know what smoking does to you," she said. "I see patients with tumors (from smoking) and it's kind of hard. I could have those little tumors growing in my brain too.

"But I'm just hooked."

Hooe is one of many health-care professionals who understand the risk they take in smoking but are driven to it by the pressures of their work.

"It's a way to get off the floor," she said. "I can tell them I'm going to go have a smoke and take a 10-minute break from everything that's going on.

"My sister even died of cancer when she was 42," she said. "I'm gonna quit."

Co-worker Debbie Popp, who does not smoke, said nurses and doctors are just people.

"You were a smoker before you were a nurse," she said to Hooe. "We have doctors here who smoke. They may have just come in from having a cigarette, they may even smell like smoke, and they'll have to sit there and tell someone, 'You need to give up the cigarettes, they're killing you.'

"Many people don't know how powerful a habit it is to break."

Bobbie Kohlfeld, also a registered nurse at St. Francis, gave up smoking just as she was entering her medical career.

"I became more aware of what it was doing to me," she said. "It was really scary so I quit. It wasn't easy but I did it."

Even though it's been nine years since Dave Earl smoked he told a man in the hallway of the medical center Thursday that just the night before he had dreamed of having a cigarette.

"I've turned it around though. I jog four marathons a year and I'm about to teach my first class on smoking cessation," he said. "I just want to take a part of what that gentleman gave me and give it back."