I'm not preaching, but.....

By no means am I about to preach to anyone, but I would like to share with you all why it is that my posts have been so erratic lately.
In mid September, I acquired this horrendous cough. Since I felt ok, I decided to just ignore it. Come mid October, I went to lift my daughter into the car and I had lost my breath. Being that this scared the crap out of me, I called into work to tell them I was headed to Urgent Care and would not be in. I was promptly told that I had pnemonia. I took the heavy duty antibiotic prescribed and felt a little better. All winter I was real sluggish and tired, but everyone told me that pnemonia takes a while to recoup from and that I should just be patient. I went from going to the gym 4 or 5 days a week, to not going at all because I either lost my breath or was too exhausted to go in the first place.
Fast forward to March. I return home from work one afternoon, and decide to "sit down for 5 minutes". I fell deep asleep and upon waking could hardly ignore the tightness in my chest just below my "boobs". I picked my daughter up from school, dropped her off by my mother-in-law and returned to Urgent Care. This time I was told that I had bronchitis. After another round of heavy duty antibiotics, I still had a nasty cough and was still exhausted so I called and made an appointment to see a pulmonary doctor.
This doctor gives me a pulmonary test, gives me an allergy test and concludes that I may be at the beginning stages of asthma and that I should have a chest CT.
Well, the chest CT shows that both my lungs contain both cysts and nodules. The radiologist concludes that I probably am beginning to acquire emphysema.
I do smoke, well did, up until last Thursday. It has been a week today since my last cigarette. But I am only 33 years old...kind of young to have emphysema, even with a history of smoking. Especially since in the past five years, I hardly smoke because of my daughter. We don't smoke in the house, I normally have her in the care with me, so I don't smoke in the car, and I do not smoke in my office at work, so, the pulmonary physician is not completely convinced that I have emphysema and is sending me for more CT scans. I definitely have some type of lung disease, they just are clear as to what just yet.
The moral to my story??????
If you can, QUIT smoking NOW!!!! I'm 33 and my lungs have cysts and nodules in them, I require an inhaler, and I'm scared to death that I won't be around long enough to see the amazing person I just know my daughter is going to grow up to be.