December 29th, 2010
Lung cancer is the most deadly form of cancer in the United States, killing about 157,300 people every year — more than colon, breast and prostate cancer combined, according to the U.S. National Institutes of Health.
It is also the nation’s second leading cause of death, second only to heart disease.
And yet lung cancer attracts fewer federal research dollars per death than the other leading forms of cancer demise. Doctors have yet to find a reliable method for screening for lung cancer. And new treatments for lung cancer roll out at a snail’s pace compared with therapies for other cancers.
So why does the top cancer killer attract so little attention?
Largely because people are perceived to have done this to themselves, garnering little public sympathy, said Kay Cofrancesco, director of advocacy relations for the Lung Cancer Alliance, a national nonprofit group dedicated to lung cancer support and advocacy.
December 27th, 2010
“It’s been a year and a half,” said Larson. “Those tumors haven’t regrown and no new tumors have resurfaced.”
With drugs and other treatment, soon tumors elsewhere in Zheng’s body shrunk considerably or disappeared. With her cancer under control, she returned to the stage. But while stage four lung cancer is controllable, it remains incurable.
But if something does happen to Zheng, knowing that her loved ones can just turn on recordings of her singing comforts her.
December 8th, 2010
When Martha McCann Lesnick’s granddaughter was about 6 years old, she asked her grandmother about the yellow LiveStrong wristband she wore.
Lesnick explained that she wore it because she was fighting lung cancer. Her granddaughter replied: “oh yeah, that’s because…what did you do?”
“She was talking about smoking,” says Lesnick, a Nashville songwriter and four-year lung cancer survivor.
December 1st, 2010
Sarah Lotti will turn 10 on December 4th. She would like YOU to join in celebrating this milestone birthday. She has a request. Instead of a gift, Sarah has chosen the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation and here’s why, in her OWN words:
Jill Costello and I share many things. Her Aunt Kathy and Uncle Mark who are my Godparents. Jazmine, my puppy whose mommy was Jill’s cocker spaniel “Cookie.” And our December birthdays. Over my 10 years of life, I have been lucky to be part of Jill’s amazing family and extended family. While Jill was in the fight of her life, I learned so much, like chemo is like little pacmans in your body, how to talk quietly to God. Friendship and helping others.
