WHAT A PRETTY SMILE SHE HAD | REAL PEOPLE, REAL CANCER STORIES: #19
When Nancy sees young people smoking, she thinks, “What are you doing?”She tells them, “I lost my daughter at 36, but they think they’re indestructible.” She asks them, “What are you going to do if you find out you have it?” She wonders if it’s because they think they can’t get lung cancer.
Mostly, though, she thinks about the daughter she lost – Heather – the daughter who once told her, “Mom, when I turn 35, I’m going to quit. I’m going to try to quit.”
Heather was just a year older than that when she was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer in November 2008. She died in March 2009, just a month before her 37th birthday.
Four months before her diagnosis, Heather had been experiencing severe back pain. She had been in a car accident in April, so Heather and her family assumed the pain was a result of that. Then, in early autumn, Heather was complaining about her voice, as it sounded like she had a bad cold.
The emergency room doctor sounded concerned and gave her a name of a doctor to see as soon as possible. She got an appointment that week. The doctor found that Heather’s lymph node on her left side was swollen.
She then was sent for more tests to see if cancer was anywhere else in her body. A PET scan was taken, as well as a mammogram. An appointment was made to start chemotherapy.
Soon after starting the chemo treatments, Heather’s hair started falling out. Her mother Nancy went with Heather to pick out a wig that was as close to her own hair as possible. Nancy says that Heather smiled through this process, trying on different colors and styles of wigs.
“To see her smile was a wonderful thing to see,” Nancy says. “And what a pretty smile she had.”
Later, during the chemo treatments, Heather started not eating well, getting sick to her stomach, and sleeping a lot. Many different pills were subscribed to her—sometimes, it seemed like too many to keep track of. Pain pills, sleeping pills, pills for an appetite, pills not to vomit.
“Heather was slowly leaving us, and it seemed there was nothing we could do but watch,” Nancy says.
As time went on, Heather started to struggle to take breaths of air, so the doctor put her on oxygen. Radiation was also started to battle the lung cancer.
Heather’s two children knew their mommy was sick but Nancy said she really doesn’t think they knew how really sick she was. Heather’s kids were everything to her, and she was everything to them.
Heather was a hard worker and didn’t have a lot of fancy things, but loved her two children, who always came first in her life. She liked to scrapbook, Janet Jackson was her favorite singer, and she liked the color pink. At Christmas, she and a few close friends would get together and make Christmas cookies.
Nancy moved in with her daughter to take care of her and her grandchildren.
“I did what could to help my daughter, but I could see in her eyes she wanted to be caring for her family, but didn’t have the strength to. I think she realized how sick she was getting. And nothing was helping her get better,” she says.
March 12th was Heather’s last doctor’s appointment. Nancy says that Heather told her that she was scared to go, and that she had a terrible feeling. Sure enough, Heather never came home.
She was put in the hospital that Thursday, and left this earth early on Sunday morning. Her two wonderful children are without a mom now.
“We, the family of Heather, have lost something so precious that we will never get back,” Nancy says.
So Nancy wonders. She marvels at the attitudes that so many young people have about smoking - the number one risk factor for lung cancer. Do they think they are indestructible?
But more than anything Nancy wishes for a cure. She relives the day her daughter died over and over, and will miss her always.
If you would like to share the story of a loved one who fought lung cancer, or if you are a lung cancer survivor and would like to share your story, please send an email toKelley.dunn@oncimmune.com. You may also visit our Lung Cancer Awareness Wall, an interactive memorial for those who have battled lung cancer, and submit their story there.
To see if you or a loved one are at risk for lung cancer, try out Free Lung Cancer Risk Assessment or see a complete list of lung cancer risk factors.
According to the American Cancer Society, early detection is the best chance to increase the lung cancer survival rate. To learn more about early detection, click here.
Heather’s story is just one of many. To read more real lung cancer stories from lung cancer survivors, people who have fought cancer and people who have lost loved ones to the disease, click here.
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