What matters most

This week wasn't a great week for me. My mother had to be rush into A & E as she had difficulty breathing. Chronic Bronchitis the doctor diagnose.
it was tuesday morning when my mother started complaining about her difficulty in breathing, I had to take urgent leave to bring her to the clinic where the doctor gave her oxygen and some medication. I had to stay home to make sure she is fine, i just can't leave her home alone. I had to check up on her every 15 minutes just to make sure she was fine. By evening she recovered and had no problem with breathing anymore.
The shock came the next morning when i saw my mother sitting on the couch breathing heavily her face pale like a sheet of paper. Apparently she has already told my dad that she needs to go to the hospital but my Dad was still bathing and doing his morning routine in the morning. WTF!!! I immediately change and took my mother's IC and drove all the way to TTSH A & E. Had to take the road shoulder as the CTE was jam pack! I will buy a siren next time and fix it on top of my car, this way everyone will know its an emergency.
By the time we reached the hospital, she had to be send into the resusitation room to be resusitated! This plump male nurse was reprimanding me for not calling the ambulance to send her to the hospital earlier. I didn't want explain myself as this was the fastest way rather than waiting for an ambulance to come to send her to the hospital. I wondered if i have taken the same attitude as my dad did, would my mother have survived? The only thing i knew to do was to message some of my friends to pray for her. I was at a lost as this was out of my control already...
By the time the doctor update us of her condition, my Dad has just reached the hospital. Thank God it was good news! They managed to resusitate my mother and she only had to stay in the hospital for observation for a few days.
After talking to the doctor, he confirmed it was the smoking that cause her breathing difficulty. You see my friends, the smoking over the 60 years has caused her lungs to be already seriously damaged. Any slight change of weather that caused her to have a small cough will multiply the seriousness ten fold, twenty folds, hundred folds! Chronic bronchitis... there is no cure... you can only stop it from growing any worse.
To all my friends who are smoking, you are young and you don't see the effect of the smoking but just give yourself another 5 years, 10 years, see if it smoking will finally catch up with you? My mother felt that she didn't mind the health damage from smoking but i really want to tell her its not just about the pain she caused herself but its also the pain she cause the rest of the family members to see her suffering like that.
What matters most in life? Getting that pay raise? Getting the satisfaction of advancing in your career? Living and enjoying life to the fullest? Just spend a morning at the hospital's A&E. It may just change some priorities in your life. Suddenly, everything seems so unimportant when you realise you are on the verge of losing an important part of yor life. To me, that would be my mother. I cannot even contemplate in my mind the thought of losing her.
To quit smoking is tough. To see the need to quit is even tougher. Once there is a reason, a need to do so, it will be much easier. To my mother, her reason to quit is probably not to experience that morning again. I hope it is burn deep in her memories.
What really matters, will really matter to you, no excuses and u don't have to give any reasons.