MPR: Meet Life-Long Smoker Lyman Jenson

Meet Life-Long Smoker
Lyman Jenson
By Laura McCallum
January 23, 1998

In Minnesota's case against the tobacco industry, the state and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota are seeking to recover the costs spent treating the ailments of 90,000 smokers. But that number doesn't tell the true story of Minnesotans who've suffered from smoking-related illnesses.

70-YEAR-OLD LYMAN JENSON of Bloomington is ashamed to admit it, but he began smoking when he was 10. Growing up in Watertown, South Dakota, Jenson says he and his friends would stand outside the local theater, and smoke the still-smoldering cigarettes dropped by ticket holders. Smoking became a 50-year, two-to-four pack a day habit for him - and he's paying the price. Tiny tubes run from Jenson's nose to a small portable oxygen tank, his constant companion.

Jenson: I had no idea that it would do this to me! Or to anyone. And it was cool. Yes, I thought it was cool.

Jenson, a former manufacturers rep who owned a small lighting sales business, says smoking never hindered his career - in fact, he thinks it sometimes helped him. He says he knew just when to pause and light up a cigarette before closing a sale. But even when he was diagnosed with emphysema 10 years ago, he didn't quit.

Jenson: It's the most difficult thing I ever did in my life. Quit smoking. I was addicted.

Jenson says he tried to quit hundreds of times - often stopping in the morning, and smoking by noon. Finally, his doctor told him if he didn't quit, his next visit would be to a funeral home.

Jenson: (coughs) - In other words, either stop or die.

Jenson says not only has tobacco taken a toll on his health, he's paid a financial price. He has no idea what the total cost of his smoking has been, either for cigarettes or health care expenses, but he currently pays $125 a month for supplemental health insurance, and the same amount for medication.

Jenson: Medicare and my insurance pay for the oxygen, which is very expensive. So I cost somebody a lot of money! You know, society is paying a lot of money to keep me breathing!

Jenson estimates his oxygen costs up to $1,000 a month, and he's been on it for five years. If he ever needs to go on a respirator, it will cost several thousand dollars a day. Jenson's doctor, pulminologist Stuart Hanson, says Jenson's story is all too common. One in five Minnesotans smokes, and Hanson says smoking causes 90 percent of emphysema cases, and 90 percent of lung cancer cases. He says people who start smoking in their teens generally don't have health problems until their late 30s.

Hanson: You can smoke in the neighborhood of twenty years before you have symptoms that really say that maybe I shouldn't be doing this. So THAT'S the real danger of this product.

Tobacco companies argue that smoking is a personal choice, and the health risks of cigarettes are clearly posted on the package. Lyman Jenson says even if he had known the health hazards, he probably still would've smoked, because he was influenced by his peers. Jenson thinks cigarettes are so dangerous they should be banned in the US. He's been following Minnesota's case against the tobacco industry and hopes it forces tobacco companies to change the way they do business.

Jenson: How can we allow an industry - we subsidize 'em - the tobacco growers - allow them to make big bucks planting tobacco and selling tobacco products, knowing that they're going to eventually make the users sick?

Jenson says although no one forced him to start smoking, he thinks the government has a responsibility to stop an industry whose products harm people's health. Jenson says his emphysema is punishment he deserves for 50 years of smoking, but the hardest part about being connected to an oxygen tank is the way it's restricted his family's activities - he says they shouldn't have to suffer for his lifelong habit.

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