Posted on 08/09/2005 8:42:24 AM PDT by Millee
Peter Jennings was one of 170,000 Americans diagnosed with lung cancer each year. It is the most common form of cancer, responsible for 28 percent of all cancer deaths.
Jennings died Sunday, at the age of 67.
Treatments are few once lung cancer is diagnosed, but there is one very obvious, but often very difficult, way to reduce your risk of getting lung cancer -- quit smoking, reported WCVB-TV in Boston.
News of Jennings' death has been a jolt for some smokers.
"You hear about it all the time, it just never sinks in, but for some reason (Monday) it just sunk in. I've got to do something about that soon," said smoker Kraig Ravioli.
"Now that he's gone, it makes it seem real and I can't get it out of my head today," added smoker Janet Caputo.
Jennings' voice was already weak when he made his last broadcast, a sign that his cancer had advanced.
"Lung cancer metastasizes, or spreads, very quickly so that by the time it's found, it's already spread throughout the body," said Dr. Nancy Rigotti, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston.
Jennings gave up smoking 20 years ago, but had a brief relapse following the 2001 terrorist attacks.
"But then he quit again, and I think the message, perhaps his legacy, is that it is possible to quit smoking, and you should keep trying, and it's never too late," Rigotti said.
Helen Hodges said she was a closet smoker for years, only lighting up around other smokers, she recalls.
"I thought it was a dirty habit and I was embarrassed that I smoked," she said.
She finally kicked the habit several years ago, but not soon enough. Last fall she was diagnosed with lung cancer and she didn't see it coming, reported WRC-TV in Washington, D.C.
"One day I just bent down at work and I had an excruciating pain underneath my rib cage," Hodges said. "I went to the emergency room and they told me that I had pneumonia and a tumor in that lung."
Dr. Shakun Malik, who directs the lung cancer program at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., said lung cancer is a disease that often doesn't show warning signs until it's too late.
The long-term survival rate for lung cancer patients is low and the expected five-year survival rate is only 15 percent, medical experts said.
"We have a lot of new drugs and new vaccines coming into trial every day," Malik said.
Leslie Saporetti quit last year after 30 years of smoking cigarettes.
"I was smoking a pack and a half to two packs a day," she said.
Saporetti started smoking when she was 13 -- long before cigarettes had warning labels. Her mother and sister both died of cancer, but even that wasn't enough to get her to stop.
"One day I was looking at my daughter, and I realized she was as old as I was when I started smoking, and I just couldn't imagine her holding a cigarette and smoking herself," she said.
Saporetti got help at a smoking cessation study at Massachusetts General Hospital -- a combination of medication and counseling -- and lowered her risk of developing lung cancer.
"A lot of smokers think, 'It's too late. I've smoked too long, too heavily. I'm too old. It doesn't matter,'" Rigotti said. "But that's not the case. On average, when a smoker quits, they gain 10 years of life. That's a lot."
"I will never smoke again," Saporetti said.
She hasn't smoked in almost 10 months. She said that quitting was the hardest thing she's ever done, and she has some advice for smokers of any age.
"I think they should just know that it is really hard to stop, but it can be done, and that there are a lot of programs to help them and to just keep trying," she said.
Several new stop-smoking drugs are under development, but there are ways now available to quit. Call the American Cancer Society and speak to a health professional directly about the options at (800) ACS-2345.
He's Chef Boyardee's boy.
>>she said she never smoked.
what was the story with Andy Kaufman? The urban legend is that while he never smoked, he got all kinds of secondhand smoke from all the comedy clubs where he worked. "thank you veddy much"
"....governments are the ones responsible...."
Which is it? Are you confused? Your latter statement seems to imply that our government should not allow any product to be marketed or used that might cause harm to someone, somehow, sometime, somewhere, under some conditions, if used in excess, if misused, if used illegally, if used in conjunction with something else, if it doesn't please the rule makers, etceteras.
I prefer the concept of individual responsibility.
Merry Christmas, Mr President and yes, thank you for the thoughtful gift!
(a Tex Williams song, also covered by Asleep at the Wheel if I remember right)
Now I'm a feller with a heart of gold
And the ways of a gentleman I've been told
The kind of guy that wouldn't even harm a flea
But if me and a certain character met
The guy that invented the cigarette
I'd murder that son-of-a-gun in the first degree
It ain't cuz I don't smoke myself
And I don't reckon that it'll harm your health
Smoked all my life and I ain't dead yet
But nicotine slaves are all the same
At a pettin' party or a poker game
Everything gotta stop while they have a cigarette
Smoke, smoke, smoke that cigarette
Puff, puff, puff and if you smoke yourself to death
Tell St. Peter at the Golden Gate
That you hate to make him wait
But you just gotta have another cigarette
My mom died of lung cancer in '96 at the age of 77. Never smoked a cigarette her entire life. She died 5 1/2 weeks after she was diagnosed.
Sad to hear--I'm guessing that it's possible to get lung cancer even without smoking or even without secondhand smoke.
,
Bookmarking to show my dad. :-)
I don't care if people smoke. I do care that the government wants life both ways - anti smoking but still allows tobacco sales and revenue (taxes). That, to me, is the contradiction and hypocrisy of the issue.I'd rather they get out of the issue altogether. Period.
But that's where it stops. Don't go anywhere NEAR those who don't. I'll be there with MANY to cover those backs.
If everyone quits smoking, SS will just go broke sooner, or the the retirement age will have to go up sooner.
It's everyone's patriotic duty to start smoking at 18 (remember, it's about the children) and then smoke as much as humanly possible so you can help pay the tobacco taxes. In doing so, you'll probably die early and not be a strain on the SS system.
Peter was just being a good patriot. I guess I'm not.
What do you want? Good glamour or good tast? WHAT DO YOU WANT!
Oh, wait, that was Winston.
He did a commercial stating publicly he had lung cancer and urged peole not to smoke. He died not long after.
William Talman. I remember how spooky that TV ad was for a young kid. Yul Brynner's was very chilling as well.
See my 55. It may clear things up.
Lucky Strike, maybe?
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