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Life & Arts

Carson may have fought for last breath

Get Well

Ron Douthitt

Johnny Carson was hot. Carson was it. The late Gilda Radner once said that she loved watching Carson because she felt "safe" watching him. She said, "while Carson was on she always knew everything was going to be alright." 

I totally understood. As a journalist and writer I could only dream of being a guest on the Tonight Show. Back when I could still dream a dream at 22-years-old, which was when Carson was still on the air, I had just begun writing my first novel. If I could have only made it to the Tonight Show as a guest, I could have walked out onto the streets of Burbank, Cali. after leaving the set and been hit by a car, because my life would have been complete. Nothing could be finer than to be on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson.

As I write health articles and have known since long before I began smoking that smoking causes emphysema -- among a myriad of other disgusting health problems -- it saddens me that Carson had to suffer from literally the worst of the smoking-related illnesses. Emphysema is a long, grueling and painful deterioration.

Emphysema is a slow deterioration of the lungs' ability to get enough oxygen to the rest of the body, which is why people see many of the afflicted literally toting their oxygen tanks with them. It is probably why Carson had to quit the Tonight Show in 1992. 

Carson was a private man and those closest to him are sure to covet his secrets as to why he quit the show just 14 years before his death. He did live to be 79. That's a good, solid life. Something's going to get you. However, when Emphysema is diagnosed, it's usually about 10 to 14 years before it flat out becomes impossible to catch a good, solid breath, even with oxygen.

As silly as it sounds, I smoke about three cigarettes a day. For each cigarette I have smoked since Carson's death, I have thought about the reality of whether or not those average three are truly worth it. I'm not physically addicted. It's so easy not to smoke when I'm sick. I just went four days without smoking, because of a stomach virus. Many -- especially physicians -- say, one a day is too many. I cannot tell you how many of those same physicians, who have said that, I have spotted later lighting up a cigarette -- or worse -- in back of their practice.

It was once said that Carson was really interested as to whether people still remembered him after he went into seclusion shortly after he left the Tonight Show. If that doesn't tell everyone the level of humility that was in that man, then nothing will.

Hope to see you in heaven Johnny. I've been missing you for a long time now anyway.
 

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