November Is Lung Canser Awareness Month

Ear Infection, shmear infection.
My mom does not have an ear infection my friends...just fluid in the ol ear. Not sure how it got there, but its there nonetheless. She was prescribed some meds so no biggie...
Anyway, so as you may have guessed, November is Lung Canser Awareness Month.
Observed across the country every year, Lung Canser Awareness Month helps bring attention to the risks of the disease. It also helps spread the word about the importance or prevention, earlier detection, and treatment.
We need to arm ourselves with the facts and information
Lung Canser is the development of abnormal cells in the lung. These cells begin to grow out of control and produce more cells that grow into a mass, also known as a tumor. The abnormal cells can spread to other parts of the body, this is known as Metasis.
There are two major types of lung canser:
small cell
non small cell
Small cell lung canser accounts for about 13% of lung canser cases. Small cell lung canser tends to spread rather quickly early on in the disease.
Non small cell lung canser accounts for about 87% of all lung canser. This type of lung canser spreads at a much slower rate.
Lung canser also has a certain stigma attached to it...almost everyone believes that you can only get lung canser from smoking. This just simply isn't true and although my mom has small cell lung canser, her doctor cannot attribute her canser to her smoking.
There are many risk factors for lung canser. A risk factor is anything that increases your chance of developing the disease. Having one or more risk factors doesn't mean that you will develop lung canser, but people with certain risk factors are more likely to develop lung canser. many risk factors can be changed, but not all of them can be avoided.
Here are a few risk factors that you can change:

Tobacco use is by far the leading cause of lung canser, accounting for about 9 out of`10 cases.
People who inhale second hand smoke may also be at higher risk for lung canser. They are exposed to the same canser causing agents as smokers.
Environmental risk factors, such as asbestos, radon, and air pollution can increase the risk of lung canser.

These are the risk factors that you cannot control:

Family history or personal history of lung canser increases your risk of developing lung canser or a second tumor.
Age. If you are older than 65, you are at greater risk for lung canser.
Ethnicity. (this one is a shocker to me) African Americans are more likely to develop lung canser than those in any other racial or ethnic group.

There are some statistics that are much more shocking to me than the one about ethnicity, but they are tough to read and even tougher to digest. I will keep these to myself for now and maybe forever, who knows. I will however, warn you whether or not I decide to share these so you can look away.
So, the bottom lines are this:
Lung canser, as well as all canser, is wack.
No matter what statistics you read, they did not do a study on 1,000 Karan's...these are not necessarily HER statics...everyone is different.

My mom has small cell lung canser with brain mets.
My mom is surviving.
My mom is kicking the shit out of canser.

SUPPORT CANSER RESEARCH

help us bring the invisible canser into the light

hugs
xx

ps...our ribbon color is white or clear. i have some clear ribbon pins if anyone wants some, let me know and i will mail you one.