Eighteen or One Hundred?

I know a hundred people, at least. Well actually I know a lot more than a hundred people, but for the sake of argument I'm going to stick with that number.  And by "know",  I don't mean "know well". I mean these are just a hundred people who are sort of in my regular orbit, some of whom I know well, others, not so well. I'm guessing, too, that maybe most of us know at least a hundred people – friends, family members, people from work or school or yoga class, the regulars at the coffee shop, a favorite barista, a hairstylist or barber, the waitress at the breakfast joint who calls you baby. Okay, let's count some of the social media friends; we just like each other's posts, and somehow, these people in cyberspace have become part of that crowd of one hundred.

So think about those hundred people. And now, imagine (God forbid!) that they have all been diagnosed with lung cancer. And fast forward five years. Only eighteen of them (statistically speaking) will be alive. 

That's right. According to the most recent statistics, only 18% of people diagnosed with lung cancer live longer than five years. And that's an improvement over a number which hasn't changed much in a few decades.

I was pretty shocked when I read that number. And the statistics are even worse for someone like me, diagnosed in a late metastatic stage, which also happens to be the most common stage for diagnosis. Why is the survival rate so low? There are a number of reasons. We don't routinely screen for lung cancer in the way we do for other cancers to detect and treat it early; we don't fund lung cancer research at the levels that we fund research into other types of cancer; lung cancer symptoms rarely present in an early stage, so by the time they are diagnosed, many lung cancer patients already have incurable metastatic disease. Likely the overarching reason for all of these issues is that lung cancer is still a highly stigmatized disease due to the mistaken belief that only those with the poor health practice of cigarette smoking will get it.

Last year at this time I did not have the ability to recite lung cancer statistics off the top of my head, nor did I ever think that I'd be included in those statistics. I know too many lung cancer numbers, and make myself obnoxious at dinner parties reciting them.  But, I refuse to accept the grim prognosis those numbers tell. The pace of research is picking up, sustained by a number of organizations like The Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation  and Lungevity,  which are focused on ending lung cancer. I think our chances are improving all the time. In fact, I'd like to think that when I celebrate my five-year Cancerversary, I'll know at least a hundred other people with lung cancer who are celebrating theirs.