Time to do something about it

Now that I have gone through the grieving process I have learned that I need to channel my raw, emotional energy into other areas of my life and somehow make a positive impact. Laying in bed trying to find the energy to fight away the tears isn't getting me anywhere.

I have started the non-profit. I'm still waiting on official paperwork for it to be "legit" but in every other sense of the word it has been started and we continue to gain momentum.

This isn't about my parents anymore. This is about all of the lung cancer patients and their families that feel as if they do not have a voice; literally and figuratively.

Lung cancer comes with a stigma. A stigma that has created a world where we just ignored the situation at hand. We put our hands over our eyes and plug our ears and just pretend it doesn't exist. Guess what? It does exist. It exists on every street corner in this country and it exists in a BIG way. Lung cancer is the largest killer of all the major cancers!  Why don't we hear about it? Because of a lack of funding. It is the least funded of all major cancers. Why? Because of the social stigma attached to the disease. As a society we view lung cancer as a smoker's disease. We shame smokers. We blame them for their illness. I personally feel as if it is a way for people to convince themselves that they are somehow invincible from getting lung cancer. It's a defense mechanism. An avoidance behavior. No one is invincible so you can keep the judgment to yourself.  Anyone can get lung cancer, including children. About 1/4 of all people diagnosed with lung have never smoked a day in their life!  That's concerning and it's proof that there are additional factors other than cigarettes that cause lung cancer. On the surface, we know this. Radon, Asbestos, environmental pollutants, etc all can cause or have an affect on lung cancer. True. The problem is that that is all we know. We don't have enough funding to dig deeper.

We need to change the stigma. We need to increase the funding and we need to do it fast! The survival rate for folks with lung cancer is less than 15%! That's grim. The sad part is that it has been that way for 40 years. Nothing has changed. Research hasn't changed, federal funding hasn't changed in over 40 years! Honestly people we can only look the other way for so long... it's time to take the hands off from our eyes and unplug our ears and do something about it.