Is it luck?

That some people have? Or what. I am talking about regarding health. THere are people who smoke like a chimney and seem to live forever. My best friend's father has MS, cancer of various body parts/organs (in remission at the moment), diabetes, smokes like 5 cartons a day, lost his teeth (ok that's not a disorder), eats candy and sweets like there was no tomorrow, and has outlived his five year time limit like 15 years ago. He has a mean streak like a pitbull. I think that's what keeps him alive. His horrible nature. He's verbally and emotionally abusive, and probably when he could get up and move around was physically abusive. But yet he lives on. My best friend and I and even most of her family believe he lives to make the rest of them miserable (I thank goodness am not part of the family although they say I am but thank the gods I never married into it, I used to go out with my best friend's brother).

This has been on my mind for a few days because I wonder about my mother. My father has been to the hospital zillions of times since his father died. This is a turnaround since he hadn't really gone before that. But I can't really say when my mother had ever been to the doctor. I think when my brother was born like 30 years ago. My mother smokes like a smokestack and drinks like a dying man in the desert who found an oasis. She MUST have liver problems. HAS to have lung disease. I can't imagine what her insides look like. Not that I would want her to die or anything.

I've been catching up on Grey's Anatomy and seeing some of the episodes about the people with cirrhosis of the liver or tumors or black lung makes me wonder about my mother. I know thats only a TV show, and mostly entertainment, but they do pull some things from real life right? I know people who have died from lung cancer from smoking. I know people who have died from cirrhosis of the liver. What makes some last longer than others? Is it possible that she doesn't have these problems? I also wonder who is going to go first. My father had a stent put in recently because he had I think a blockage in his heart. He has an aneurysm in his leg. He is older than my mother. If he did go first, I don't know how my mother would function. She I think would get much worse. If she goes first, I know my father would manage.

Morbid I suppose. But I just wonder what makes one person with serious health problems live longer than someone else who has similar issues. Is it in the mind? I don't think my mother is really happy. I think my father just exists. Emotion isn't a big thing in my family.

G-man says he doesn't want to know what he is dying of. If he goes, he wants it to be when it happens. His father died of pancreatic cancer (I think), his uncle had prostate cancer and I think some other family members have died of either the same or another cancer. So it appears to be a family thing. But he doesn't want to know. I told him that maybe he should at least get his sacks checked. He said he would but I know he won't. I would never make him but I just made a suggestion.

Then again, I'm not sure I would want to know if my days were numbered. I mean they are anyway, but I mean if I had something that would number them even more. I try to eat right, I don't drink really, I no longer smoke, I don't do drugs, I do need to get my fat ass off the couch and break out into a sweat more. I do see the doctor for that occasional checkup and girlie stuff. But will all this be in vain?