LCAM Reflections

Right now, for me, it is November 30th. This means that another Lung Cancer Awareness Month (LCAM) has come to a close. Each month has a worthy cause, and the lung cancer community gets to share the impact of this disease in November. I have now participated in seven Lung Cancer Awareness Months and each year I have changed degrees to which I participate. This year I chose not to take to personal posting but helped one of the patient-driven organizations post to their Instagram. With that being said, I would love to share my reflections on another successful campaign by our community.

Recognizing LCAM

Many people have chosen to highlight one lung cancer-related fact each day on their chosen social media platforms. I find this to be the most popular way to advocate during LCAM. This is helpful because it reaches those people that may not understand the significance that this topic has to the original poster. For lung cancer awareness month in 2020, I made graphics and shared them with a patient-only Facebook group. Each graphic has a fact and was cited. I have seen many of those graphics posted this year as well.

Biomarker awareness groups

The EGFR Resisters and ALK-positive chose to use patient pictures and stories each day for their lung cancer awareness campaigns. You can find these on Facebook, Instagram ad Twitter. The EGFR Resisters posted graphics that read “because of lung cancer research...” and ALK-positive posted “someone in this picture was diagnosed with lung cancer”. Both ways to spread awareness proved to be helpful and enlightening.

Lungevity Foundation

Lungevity Foundation chose to highlight patients who are actively living life as well as they know your biomarker hashtag. These stories are important for our community to give hope and inspiration to those newly diagnosed or to those that may be struggling to find their place in the world post-diagnosis. For LCAM, Go2 Foundation also shared patient and caregivers stories highlighting many of the topics that we see throughout the community such as early detection, biomarker testing, and veterans.

The White Ribbon Project and more

An active patient-driven group in the community, the White Ribbon Project held white ribbon builds as well as an event at Centennial Olympic Park to commemorate the 10th year of the Chris Draft foundation.

Finally, Lung Cancer Awareness Month closed on #GivingTuesday. According to GivingTuesday.org, GivingTuesday was created in 2012 as a simple idea: a day that encourages people to do good. It is always the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and it encourages many to donate money as well as time to organizations and foundations in need.

How do you spread awareness?

I know that LCAM was successful this year because my local hospital posted about it on their sign outside. They may not have changed the lights or done anything enormous, but we are moving the needle forward and maybe next year they will do more!

Have you found a way to spread awareness during LCAM that you have found to be impactful? Let us know in the comments!