Personal Essay: How Lung Cancer Changed My Life

My father suddenly developed a deep, scary cough unlike anything I had ever heard before. It wasn’t the kind of cough that comes with an ordinary cold. It was the kind of cough that makes anyone who hears it, even strangers who don’t know you nervous. It was a warning. An omen. We just didn’t know it yet. The cough persisted for months, and after an incorrect diagnosis of pneumonia, we finally learned that it was lung cancer.

Cancer is the dreaded "C" word. It has become such an epidemic in our society that people are loath to even mention its name. Now I was facing this dreaded “C” word. My dad was diagnosed with lung cancer and even worse it was small cell. Small cell has a very poor treatment and survival rate especially in 1994. My day was going to face radiation and chemotherapy and every scary

Even now it takes a few seconds for the full meaning of the words “lung cancer” and everything that that term brought to and changed in my life to register for me.

2 years after learning that he was sick, my dad died. Those 2 years were the saddest, longest, and strangest months of my life. I moved through them in slow motion but so fast at the same time. My parents were raising my 1 year old nephew when all this started. I was newly engaged and planning a wedding. All this while he was fighting the disease that was stealing his life, rotting his lungs and slowly clawing its way into the rest of his body.

My dad entered remission long enough for his hair to grow back and to walk me down the aisle. Looking like is old self with his dark brown hair and mustache. He looked so handsome in his suite. I remember being so very thankful and happy that he was “ok” for my wedding. Little did I know that would not last. My dad’s remission only lasted 6 months before it came back with the news that it has spread to his