Blanche Bonanno started smoking at age 13, and couldn't stand it when anyone would try to get her to stop.

Her three sons, who do not smoke, nagged her about her habit.

"They always told me not to smoke," the 73-year-old Farrell woman said. "I told them, 'Don't tell me how to live.' "

But, at age 70, a visit to a hospital emergency room started her on the road to changing her thinking.

Speaking two days this week at Farrell Area Elementary School's afterschool program for grades four through eight, Ms. Bonanno said she was having difficulty breathing and doctors initially diagnosed pneumonia and heart failure.

A boy asked her Wednesday if she was near death when she went to the hospital.

"I would say, yes," she responded. "I was very sick."

Later, doctors told her she had asthma, emphysema and chronic pulmonary obstruction disorder.

But she kept smoking.

"Nobody was going to get me to quit smoking," said Ms. Bonanno, who must constantly breathe oxygen from a tank. "I smoked when I was sick, so I deserved everything I got."

She finally decided to quit smoki ng when she realized that it was her best chance to live longer. "I decided I wanted to live, so I quit," said Ms. Bonanno, a Trumbull County native who lived in Las Vegas for many years.

As division director for the American Heart Association, Diane O'Brien wants to try to prevent children from picking up smoking, which was why she asked Ms. Bonanno to accompany her to Farrell. "We didn't want to preach," she said. "We wanted the children to have a real-life experience."

She noted smoking's link to heart disease, respiratory problems, cancer and birth defects, and told the students of her husband's two-year battle with lung cancer, which has included surgery to remove a lung, and chemotherapy.

"Seven out of every 10 people who get lung cancer die," she said, adding that her husband had quit smoking about 15 years ago. "The main cause of lung cancer is smoking."

The important thing, Ms. Bonanno said, is not to start smoking. She quit smoking three times over the years, but always went back. Even when she decided to quit, she needed help, which she found with a filter called Lite 'N Up, which gradually reduces the amount of nicotine the smoker receives.

"Don't put that dirty, stinking weed anywhere near your lips," she warned.

Some of the students interviewed parents or others they knew who smoked and found that they had tried to quit, and felt healthier and breathed easier while they were off the cigarettes, but couldn't kick the habit.

"Anyone who smokes is addicted to nicotine," Ms. O'Brien said. "It is very difficult for them to put that pack down."

Ms. O'Brien, of Brookfield, encouraged the students to ask their parents and other loved ones to quit, and handed out candy canes to give smokers as an alternative to lighting up.

But Ms. Bonanno, who worked at a Las Vegas smoke shop for seven years, specializing in introducing customers to new products, said they must do it tactfully.

Ms. O'Brien said she hopes to bring Ms. Bonanno to more school presentations. "I think she made an impression on the kids," Ms. O'Brien said.

"I want to help," Ms. Bonanno said. "I didn't have this when I was young. They seem to absorb it."

You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Joe Pinchot at

jpinchot@sharonherald.com