I never thought I would be a lung cancer patient having never smoked and done all the "right" things to be healthy and live a long life. So you can imagine the shock of hearing "you have stage IV lung cancer" three years ago.
ANYONE WITH LUNGS CAN GET LUNG CANCER! Radon is the No. 2 cause of lung cancer and may have contributed in my case. I am surviving because of research that has produced targeted therapies which work for a while, but then the cancer mutates and there are not that many targeted therapies. Lung cancer is still an incurable disease which leads to 154,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, it's the number one cause of cancer deaths.
My life has changed, I am fighting a serious chronic disease and the medications I take have side effects that keep me from working and being as active as I would like to be. I am thankful for the Lung Force program because it supports research funding to find treatments and cures for lung cancer and educates the public about prevention and detection of lung cancer. I hope there will be major progress made in the fight against lung cancer soon! HOPE and advocacy action are the key words in combating lung cancer in the near future.
