When I smoked, I would smoke the day prior to a procedure, but I was hard headed. Is best if you can do what the doctor says, but sometimes that is difficult.

It is hard to give up heroin, alcohol and the like and almost impossible to stop the intake of nicotine. It was the hardest thing I ever gave up.

That is an amazing thing to happen to a heart. Does it make trouble for you with them all on one side? My freaky thing was catching HOCM in my fifties. I guess it was in me all along but didnt come out until well into middle age. Hang in there brother...

I smoked from the age of 13 to 55 but I didn't smoke because I was addicted to it but because I liked it. At no time did I smoke more then a pack a day or less. I'm a born with bronchial asthmatic and I smoked because it helped my asthma attack from perfumes, colognes, and other allergens. But I liked smoking, ran track and was into gymnastics and sports for a number of years and would stop so I could breath easier. But was never an addicted, I thought I was inhaling the smoke but because I've never been able to fully inflate my lungs very little got in. I have no lung damage other then what I was born with. I went to the ER for what I thought was an uncontrollable asthma attack and couldn't breath, I hadn't had a cigarette in two days because everytime I lite one up I had bronchial seizures. I had them the day before and didn't lite up and the bronchial seizures were bad that night and I throw up all night and that morning, I thought I was having a severe asthma attack and my meds weren't working. In the hospital I learned it was a massive heart attack and I'd had a heart attack a month for over 14 months. I haven't lite up a cigarette from that day forward. I stopped with a carton of cigarettes and never lite up another one from that day. People smoking around me doesn't bother me.
I never really had a smoking problem. My test results showed no sign of my smoking, my cardiologist only knew because my sister told him I smoke.