November is Lung Cancer Awareness month.
It will be two years in January since lung cancer derailed my life. I’ve been picking up and rearranging pieces ever since. Once I began the chemo/radiation regime in early 2023 I had no expectations of living out the year. Here I am, a different person, with a wholly different vocabulary navigating an entirely different landscape. In the beginning, I felt like a stranger in a foreign land relying on the kindness of the clinic and hospital staff to guide me through the process of living, living with lung cancer.
At first, I didn’t think it was possible to live this long with the harsh diagnosis of that first PET scan. I spent hours Googling longevity and treatment. My daughter kept telling me not to believe what I read. Things have changed. Online research was outdated. Miracles happen.
Not one of the many doctors I have visited in the past two years provided a timeline for the progression of my disease. But, it did. It progressed in a matter of days at the end of 2023 and the beginning of this year, we started all over again. Yet, by the grace of God and the many people praying for me daily, I am still here.
Does that give me a purpose? Why of course it does. Today, I would like to share with you what I have learned about lung cancer — the last words I ever expected to become a part of my daily life.
• In 2024, 234,580 people will hear, “You have lung cancer.” That’s one diagnosis every 2.2 minutes.
• Early detection can boost the 5-year survival rate to 64 percent.
• The number of people dying from lung cancer increases with age, peaking at ages 65 to 74, before decreasing.
• Each year more people die of lung cancer than colon, breast and prostate cancers combined.
• While lung cancer is most often attributed to smoking, if you have lungs, you can get lung cancer.
• There are two types of lung cancer. Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and Small cell lung cancer (SCLC). SCLC is less common and more aggressive.
Lung cancer in early stages is difficult to detect making it more common to be diagnosed when it has advanced. Lung cancer in its early stages is more likely to be diagnosed when a chest X-ray is ordered for symptoms of another disease. Common symptoms include weight loss, dry cough, or coughing up blood, to name a few.
The American Society of Clinical Oncology recommends annual screenings if you’re 55-74 and smoked one or more packs of cigarettes a day, for 30 years or more, even if you quit.
Yes, if you are curious, I smoked when I was in high school and college, quit when I had children, started after my divorce for a few years and at the time of my diagnosis hadn’t smoked in close to 24 years. I didn’t fit the profile.
Even if we had been concerned about cancer the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends annual screenings with a low-dose CT scan every year if you’re 50-80 with a 20-pack-year history and you still smoke or you quit within the last 15 years. Screenings can stop when you’ve been smoke-free for 15 years or have a health problem that limits your treatment options or life expectancy.
Again, I fall outside the recommended screening.
I want to think that if I had pushed for a chest X-ray when I mentioned my weird little cough a year before I was diagnosed we would have caught it sooner. But, with the low incidence of cancer in my extended family, it wasn’t something I ever thought would happen to me.
So, reading that the five-year survival rate for NSCLC is 64 percent if caught early to about eight percent after it has spread to lymph nodes or other organs brings shivers to my spine.
While lung cancer treatment has benefited from other cancer research, it doesn’t receive the attention the other top three cancers have. Lungs are not as sexy as breasts, but we all have a pair.
I’m asking you today, to be aware, maybe even donate to lung cancer research this month or wear a white ribbon to raise awareness.
Again, I appreciate all the prayers and support from this community because I attribute my “lungevity” to you.
Anyone with lungs can have lung cancer. Life should take your breath away. Not lung cancer.
SOURCES include:
https://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/small-cell-vs-non-small-cell-lung-cancer#1-4
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