When It Isn’t Allergies

Written by Melissa Turner on behalf of the American Lung Association.

Cynthia died last night. She was 43, a mom, and a grandmother. She had been treated for allergies over the two and ½ years that I knew her.

It wasn’t allergies. An all too familiar story.

Reaching out to offer support

When we were in the office, I would hear Cynthia cough. A lot. We all did. Several of us encouraged her to get that checked out, which she did. She was given inhalers and cough medicine. None of it seemed to work.

Cynthia was a colleague with who I had not been in touch since we (like much of the nation) walked out of our cubicles in March 2020. I called Cynthia when a mutual friend and colleague told me about Cynthia’s Facebook post announcing her potential stage 4 diagnosis. As it turns out, Cynthia’s coughing was stage 4 lung cancer which was only diagnosed when she went to the hospital in crisis.

A stage 4 lung cancer survivor myself, I made sure to tell Cynthia about the importance of getting care from a multi-disciplinary team (a team of healthcare professionals that works together to provide the best possible care for patients) and the important role of clinical trials in lung cancer care.

Unfortunately, Cynthia was not well enough to start care under an oncologist and was released from the hospital into hospice where she died about a month after her original diagnosis.

Misdiagnosed with allergies for too long

Cynthia’s death brought up many emotions for me since I was also misdiagnosed with allergies for a long time, and I know we are not alone in that. Cynthia was an occasional smoker yet lung cancer was never considered as the cause of her lung issues. I personally never thought I could get lung cancer, not in my wildest imagination, as I had never smoked. The practitioners I visited never considered I could have lung cancer. Tobacco is the leading risk factor for lung cancer, but there are other risk factors like radon and air pollution exposure. And still, there is much to be learned as to why people with no obvious risk factors get lung cancer.

Advancements in lung cancer research

Lung cancer researchers have made tremendous progress in identifying a way to screen for lung cancer in those who are at high risk and the American Lung Association is committed to improving awareness and uptake of lung cancer screening through many of their programs like Saved By the Scan. It is my hope that those who are at high risk for lung cancer will get screened and one day we will find a way to detect lung cancer early in a broader population.

Anyone with lungs can get lung cancer

But in the meantime, I want to empower patients to advocate for themselves in the healthcare system. If you have symptoms, especially a cough or pain in your back that persists and there is no clear reason why talk to your doctor about the risk of lung cancer. You may be educating your doctor and that is okay! The earlier cancer of any type is detected the better.

Anyone with lungs can get lung cancer. Those who meet the high-risk criteria should take advantage of this potentially life-saving screening tool and those who do not meet the high-risk criteria because they don’t have a heavy smoking history still need to have lung cancer on their radar. If Cynthia and I had known we could get lung cancer, we may have been diagnosed in a much timelier fashion. For Cynthia, it might have meant she would still be alive today.