Detecting Lung Cancer Blog

This story is the third in a series of commentary from survivors and loved ones who have posted their message of hope, courage and often grief on our Awareness Wall. In this post, we also used various Facebook messages we’ve gotten as well.

This story is the second in a series of commentary from survivors and loved ones who have posted their message of hope, courage and often grief on our Awareness Wall.

Unfortunately, as the number one cancer killer in the United States, lung cancer claims the lives of more people each year than breast, prostate, colon, liver, kidney and melanoma cancers combined.

It is important to honor those we have lost to the disease, to remember them for their strength and courage in the face of lung cancer.

In a past blog post, we told the story of lung cancer survivor Barbara Champion, who was diagnosed with non-small cell lung cancer in the summer of 2009.

Barbara was at increased risk of lung cancer due to many risk factors. Barbara had a family history of lung cancer, as her father passed away from the disease. Additionally, she had extensive exposure to different chemicals and radiation in her work environment, and—though she gave up the habit for 10 years—she was a long term smoker, all of which increased her lung cancer risk factors.

This story on survivors is just the first in a series of commentary culled from those survivors and loved ones that have posted their message of hope, courage and often grief on our Awareness Wall

It’s easy to focus on all of the negatives with lung cancer and the pain that corresponds with the disease, for both those with lung cancer and the loved ones of those affected. We’ve had countless posts featuring those numbers, but in this post, we want to focus on something different—the survivors.

This article from MedicalImaging.org leads off with a concerning statistic – 20 percent of women with lung cancer don’t smoke.

That seems to be backed by this study, which also indicates that many women who develop lung cancer don’t smoke or have never smoked. A famous case in point is the often repeated example of Dana Reeves who died of lung cancer and reportedly never smoked.