08/03/2021
https://go2foundation.org
Dear Friends,
Last year I was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. There is no stage 5. The diagnosis was devastating.
A few weeks before I received the news that would forever change my life I felt well, that was until I was rushed to the ER with debilitating back pain. It turned out that my back pain was due to a metastasis crushing my L5 disk. Not only was I in excruciating pain but I was also frightened. Ten years ago, my younger sister, Lisa, passed from the same NSCLC (non-small cell lung cancer), and this memory still lives with me. Neither Lisa or I smoked.
The initial care I received was shockingly inept. Necessary tests weren’t ordered, a biopsy was delayed for biomarker testing and twice prescriptions were written on expired pads. That’s the short list. I wasn’t receiving the treatments and tests when I needed them. But here’s the thing, there’s no cancer guidebook. I had no idea how to manage my own health care, I didn’t know how to advocate for myself, and I was too weak to even understand all the complexities of navigating the health care system.
As traumatic as my diagnosis is I feel incredibly fortunate to have met Bonnie Addario, lung cancer survivor and founder of GO2 Lung Cancer Foundation. Without Bonnie’s tender guidance and fierce advocacy, I would not be in good health today. That’s right, I have metastatic cancer and my current state of health is good. My health is good because every day I take one pill that targets my specific type a lung cancer without destroying my immune system. This pill will stop working at some point. But I am optimistic that the medical community will soon come up with a secondary treatment. This gives me hope.
I never asked myself, “why me?’ because through Lisa’s example I understood the randomness of cancer. Still it took me months before I was able to tell my family and a handful of friends. I chose to be silent as it was easier for me not to speak and relive my story. Telling my story only infected me with sadness and invited unhelpful comments. But silence does nothing to help drive research for treatments, advocate for early screenings, change our knowledge of the causes of lung cancer beyond our limited understanding, or create a universal standard of care for lung cancer patients.
“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter.” Martin Luther King
All cancers are different, but here is what I know about mine.
~Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death.
~Despite that, lung cancer receives the least funding for all major cancers from the National Institute of Health.
~Women who never put a cigarette to their lips are twice as likely to develop lung cancer than men who never smoked.
~Lung cancer is increasing in never-smokers. In 1995 only 8% of lung cancer patients were never-smokers. Today 17.9% are never-smokers.
~Lung cancer treatment has evolved rapidly in the past decade, leading to remarkable growth in the number of therapeutic options. But more research is needed in order to advance our understanding of all cancers.
I hope that you can help me and anyone diagnosed with lung cancer by making a donation to GO2 Lung Cancer Foundation.
Love,
Catherine
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