What a week in online advocacy

I've been so busy I haven't had a chance to post about this yet, but it's been an exciting week in lung cancer advocacy - at least for me! After Boston Red Sox Commentator Jerry Remy announced that he has lung cancer, I wrote a letter to the editor at the Boston Globe and it was published last Saturday.
It was titled "Remy's Diagnosis Brings Lung Cancer Into The Open"

Immediately, people emailed in with their support of Jerry and agreed with me that lung cancer patients often hide in shame because of the smoking stigma, and that it's one of the great shames of this awful disease.

Then, on Tuesday, a REBUTTAL to my letter was published, entitled "Let's Be Clear on the Causes of Lung Cancer."

It was written by Jane Appleyard Allen, who feels very strongly that cigarettes are largely to blame for lung cancer - something I don't entirely disagree with - but her letter spurred twice as many responses as mine from lung cancer survivors and family members writing in to tell the writer (correctly so) that she was perpetuating the smoking stigma that has caused so much harm to those of us who've been touched by the disease.

She not only heard from never smokers who have late stage lung cancer, but former smokers like my mother who don't want to face judgment and a lack of compassion when they're in the fight of their lives against a relentless disease. So many heartfelt replies poured in, and the writer herself responded to say that they had made her think. She had been moved.

With her reply, I developed a new respect for Jane Allen. I think that we all share a similar view. Those of us whose experience with lung cancer also includes an experience with cigarettes wish that cigarettes had never touched our lives. We'll never know for sure whether it was the cigarettes - or just a genetic pre-disposition that contributed to ours or our loved one's lung cancer. As Suzanne Dahlberg, an advocate friend and Dana Farber cancer researcher aptly said , cigarettes are not a cause of lung cancer. They are are a "risk factor."

But at any rate, I think it can safely be said that most of us in the lung cancer community hate cigarettes. We just hate the smoking stigma that hovers like a black plague over our loved ones even more.