On leaving the chemist's to the cheerful shouts of "Bon Courage," I flipped a wave and a smile that I felt showed just the right mix of determination and apprehension.

In the 20 or so minutes the three chemists, the three customers, and I, had discussed my problem in depth, we'd come to a fine appreciation of what lay ahead.

Always conscious of personal privacy, there is something about the pharmacie that strips the French of that distancing.

Here, ears are cocked while bodies observe the polite distance barrier, and someone is sure to have a solution to whatever is being talked about.

As the highly motivated and educated chemists are the usual pre-doctor port of call it's like accompanying the patient into the surgery and chipping in your five centimes worth.

Unless the chemist is being told he's talking absolute merde, he listens with a kind solemnity to the thoughts of those who've had that particular problem.

Of course, on recognising a potentially serious ailment, he closes the subject and tells the patient to see a doctor.

But the rest - the bitten, the acne-riddled, the haemorrhoid sufferers, and the crocked, walking wounded - is fair game if one has the time. It seems most of us do.

My full-strength nicotine patches and inhaler to open the bits the oxygen was struggling through, initiated a sympathetic smile from the chemist.

"Forty a day and you're going to nothing?" he said with something akin to shock.

"Well, hardly," I replied. "I've got the nicotine patches to stop me climbing walls and killing anybody, and the e-cig for the hand to mouth habit."

He gave me a mournful glance and said: "I think you should still bring it down in stages."

"I have five fags left," said I, as my heart constricted at what I'd just said. "And that's it.

"Finished. Over. I daren't have a pack in the house or I'll be back on them."

"Well, maybe buy a packet and give yourself a treat now and then, like after a meal," was his next suggestion.

Behind me a voice said: "She can't do - it's got to be all or nothing." Another chimed in with, "But it's a shock to the system to stop anything abruptly."

A third nodded wisely and added: "The body can't take it and that's when it breaks down."

Hang on a minute I said to the chemist, aren't you meant to be congratulating me on giving up, not suggesting ways around it?

"Congratulations," he said. "I'm just giving you options."

For me now, though, there are no options. I have/had no choice unless I wish to end up parked in a corner with oxygen tubes running up my nostrils.

I would have carried on of course if managing a boisterous pup hadn't left me gasping for breath at times, barely able to put a foot in front of the other.

And I would have carried on if I hadn't been sent for lung functioning testing by the anesthetist for an operation I've now put off.

Even as I faced the pulmonologist and saw the awful truth of how little my lungs were functioning I was still hoping for the 'get out of jail free' card to be chucked at me.

No chance. In a charming, and as I'm learning, very French non-judgemental way, she explained what she could and couldn't do for me.

No cures but at least a halting of the emphysema and chronic bronchitis. You don't need oxygen fortunately she added, looking at my results.

At the impact of that having been a possibility, my face must have shown my horror as I muttered: "And only myself to blame."

"Oh, there's no point in that," she said cheerfully. "Waste of time. But if you want to halt the emphysema then I'm afraid you'll have to stop."

No big drama about the self-inflicted damage, no table thumping 'thou musts,' no look of disgust or sneer of righteous disapproval.

All these I've had from UK doctors in the past and like a sulky child I've thought 'sod you' and re-doubled my smoking efforts.

But this simple laying out of facts plus a detailed explanation of the results before her without any hint of censure was all this woman had to do to turn my smoking switch to 'off.'

It's been six days now since I finished my last cigarette and begun the day with an inhalation of something which has improved my breathing to almost normal.

Sure I'm nicotined up to my eyeballs - at the pulmonologist's suggestion and prescription- but it's the smoke that does the real damage.

It being France, she also offered me a fortnight in a spa for lung rehabilitation. "You could swim, cycle, have massages," she said brightly. "Shall I book you in?"

Sadly, unless they take pups, no.

At the chemist's, we all agreed a spa fortnight would have been fun even with the exercises. One woman went every year for her arthritis.

It was time to go and smoke the last five. A final word from the chemist: "Now don't beat yourself up if you have an occasional one. Bon Courage."