LungBlog

A HAIR-RAISING and fundraising night was had by all when friends of lung cancer sufferer Ammi Scott got together at Hacq Hair Artistry at Burleigh Heads.

Third annual golf tournament benefits the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation. Tournament includes trophies, contests and prizes. $150 (reception and dinner), $450 (golf and dinner), $1,600 (foursome), sponsorships $2,006-$25,000. Sept. 22. Lake Merced Golf & Country Club, Daly City. (415) 357-1278

June 25, 2008 marks a revolutionary day in history for anybody who cares about Lung Cancer, the Number One Cancer Killer in this country. It’s almost tantamount to July 4th, Independence Day, for Lung Cancer. For the first time, in the last four decades, Lung Cancer finally has a voice, thanks to Senators Chuck Hagel, Dianne Feinstein and the tireless work over the last five years of Laurie Fenton, Sheila Ross and the Lung Cancer Alliance.

Today, Lung Cancer Alliance (LCA) hailed the introduction of legislation that creates the first ever multi-agency, comprehensive program targeted at lung cancer and authorizes $75 million to start the first phase of the five year program to reduce lung cancer mortality.

The foundation draws in £3m a year in grants and donations and it grants £1.5m out for research into the early detection of lung cancer.

Professor Ray Donnelly, founder and president of the Foundation, said: “The important thing is the current building, which was built for lung cancer research, will continue. However we have got too big for the administration, fundraising, and tobacco control staff.

“The university will now have more opportunity to move in other cancer specialists, creating a wonderful centre for cancer research.

Loretta Mealing lost both parents to lung cancer and a sister to breast cancer, which also threatened her life more than 11 years ago.

So when the American Cancer Society’s Fight Back Express bus rolled into Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta Wednesday, the Stockbridge resident jumped at the chance to squeeze a

handwritten note among thousands of signatures already scribbled on the bus’s side. “I love you, Mudear,” it said.

Mealing was among dozens of metro Atlantans who signed their names to the red, white and blue rolling petition which calls for making the fight against cancer a higher national priority.

If good news travels fast, words of hope must move at the speed of light.

At least that’s what Murrysville teen Kelsey Barner found out when she began compiling her inspirational collection of cancer stories, “In Their Own Words.”

The book, a 155-page paperback, was published last month in time for Murrysville’s Relay for Life May 30 and 31.

It has 30 personal accounts of how patients, family members and caregivers have dealt with this overwhelming disease.

First diagnosed with lung cancer at age 23, Katherine–a non-smoker–began a long road of radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Five years later and after six recurrences, she succumbed to her  disease. In Wilson’s photograph, titled “This is Not a Dress Rehearsal,” a smiling Katherine and her  father playfully remove their hats to display their bald heads – Katherine’s from her cancer  treatments and her father’s a result of his sympathetic shaving.
“Katherine’s cancer diagnosis changed our family in unexpected ways,” said Wilson. “From the  earliest days, she proved that she would not let this disease negatively impact the rest of her life.  The photograph shows how much she believed that – even in those days after first learning about her  diagnosis.”

The project, which is being piloted by health chiefs Newham Primary Care Trust (PCT), will target three of the most common cancers in the UK - breast, lung and bowel. It will run for two years.

Healthy Communities for Cancer aims to bring together community groups, lay people, patient representatives, health professionals, social services and the voluntary sector.

In a series focusing on medical specialties, the BBC News website meets Sandra Collinson, who talks about being a lung cancer clinical nurse specialist.