By SHIRLEY GOLLER
Date: 09/11/98 22:30
Having always enjoyed excellent health, I was not surprised when at my annual checkup in January, my doctor said I was in really good shape.
So imagine my shock and anger when in March, at age 66, I learned I had lung cancer. Incidentally, I am not a smoker and my family has no history of cancer.
Thank God women undergoing routine physicals are given tests for other cancers. We learn of breast cancer from a mammogram. A Pap smear will determine if we have cervical cancer. It is my understanding that blood tests are available to determine the presence of other cancers in the system.
Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer of men and women -- far more deadly than breast cancer in women or prostate cancer in men. I learned I had lung cancer in March when even though I felt great, I started coughing up small blood clots.
A chest X-ray confirmed I had lung cancer.
Why, I ask, was my last routine chest X-ray five years ago? Why isn't it part of every physical? And if a chest X-ray is not cost-effective, tell me why it is not -- if it can save even one life.
Further tests showed my cancer had already spread to the lymph nodes, meaning lung surgery would not solve the problem. I began radiation and chemotherapy.
Early detection makes a difference for other cancers. Why not for lung cancer, the deadliest of all?
In 1980, the American Cancer Society recommended against testing for early detection of lung cancer to focus instead on primary prevention of cigarette smoking.
Is it any wonder, then, that from 1980 until 1996, the annual incidence of lung cancer rose 51 percent while mortality increased 57 percent? I thought smoking was on the decline.
Should it surprise anyone that long-term survival rates have remained unchanged at 10 to 14 percent for several decades?
Jane E. Brody wrote in a New York Times health column in May of an epidemic of lung cancer in women. "Where are the advocacy groups fighting for greater awareness of the lung cancer risk to women and pleading for more money for research into this major killer?" she asked.
What lung cancer needs is a public figure like Betty Ford, the former first lady, whose open discussion of her own breast cancer gave a boost to the fight against that dreadful disease.
In 1996, the federal government invested $600 million in breast cancer research -- six times what it put into lung cancer studies. Think of all the women with breast cancer whose lives have been saved. Think of all the lung cancer patients who could be saved.
The American Cancer Society predicts that 84 percent of women found to have breast cancer in 1998 will live at least five years and 67 percent will survive at least a decade. It says that 14 percent of men and women found to have lung cancer will live beyond five years.
I am fighting my lung cancer with everything I've got, and I will beat it!
An old Sunday School friend of mine, hearing of my disease, called me up a while back to offer help. We got together, and I urged she get a chest X-ray. She promised to do so.
A week later, I called to thank her for her support. Her husband said she was in the hospital. Having had a chest X-ray, she was undergoing surgery for lung cancer. And I pray she will be one of the lucky ones because she detected it early.
Men and women are dying of lung cancer two decades shy of their life expectancy. They would like to see their children marry and have children of their own. Let's make it possible.
My advice to others: Please take charge -- get a chest X-ray.
Goller, a lifelong Kansas City resident, is a retired general manager of the Crown Center Associated Stores. An artist, former teacher and longtime community volunteer, she is the mother of three sons and has six grandchildren. She also is blessed with two healthy parents.
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