I’ve a personal interest in lung cancer awareness – an axe to grind, even. That’s because lung cancer robbed my children of their grandfather, on their father’s side.
A farmer and contractor all his life, he died too young, in January 1980, within months of late diagnosis, at the age of 60 – two years before his first grandchild was born. Cigarettes were the thieves of his lungs.
It has been an immeasurable loss for our family – unquantifiable, really. Let’s count a few ways: no grandfather to jiggle them on his knee or to show them the animals in the yard; to take them to the co-op; to walk the crops with them; pass on the many tillage and machinery skills he had; to talk sense to them when they needed it; to have a bond with him that many children have with their grandparents, particularly those who live close by.
I loved my own grandfather who lived on our farm mainly because he had more time to answer “why” questions than very busy parents.
Tragically, photographs and passed-on stories are all our children and their two cousins will ever have of their grandfather.
Born in 1919 in Co Wexford, he started on Woodbines as a school child, as several of his brothers did – single cigarettes bought with halfpennies, until a wage and age made buying full packets possible. If you couldn’t afford a packet you could afford one, and there you were then: one step on the treadmill of buying and perhaps dying because of them, if you were unlucky.
CIGARETTES SOLD SINGLY NEAR SCHOOLS
The same craic was still going on when I was a child in the late 1960s: shops near schools selling them in ones and twos – but nobody was aware then, unfortunately, of the health implications of cigarettes. Wasn’t it the era when smoking in films was the norm and cigarette ads on television were still portraying what are killers as being “cool as a mountain stream”, no less?
Who could blame anyone, then, for becoming addicted? Nicotine is a seriously addictive drug, after all. Even some doctors were smoking them then, blissfully unaware of their dangers. Think of the blue plumes in Call The Midwife, set in the 1950s.
Thankfully, the truth is known now and, while there are still too many people smoking, there is enforced legislation to stop the kind of selling that got young people hooked so early back then.
a HORRIBLE SIGHT
How far we’d come as a society actually came home to me at Dublin Airport over New Year. Browsing in the duty-free section, I passed the stands of multi-pack cigarettes that bore graphic images of cancer-affected lungs. Horrible pictures, all lined up beside one another, rows and rows of them.
It was enough to turn your stomach, as well as turning you off smoking and making you angry that cigarettes are still on sale at all and that smoking still causes nine out of 10 deaths from lung cancer.
Hearing then, in new research from the Global Lung Cancer Coalition (GLCC), that fewer people in Ireland could name the signs and symptoms of lung cancer in 2017 than in 2013 was a bit of a shock. What? In this day and age, where smoking implications are shoved under the spotlight again and again? It didn’t make sense.
Those who have lung cancer are being diagnosed late in emergency departments, too, rather than via their GP, leading to poor outcomes.
What’s going on? Is all the stop-smoking/don’t-start-smoking advice going in one ear and out the other? Or are there different factors at play?
Kevin O’Hagan, cancer prevention manager with the Irish Cancer Society says there are a number of reasons why people are leaving it late to present with lung cancer.
“The latest figures from the global study referred to say there is very little awareness of cancer symptoms, such as a cough that doesn’t go away or repeated chest infections.
I think some people underplay some of the symptoms associated with lung cancer and underestimate their severity.
"Some of the symptoms of lung cancer could be confused with normal run of the mill conditions, but together they can all add up to something very serious,” says Kevin.
Many smokers live with a cough or a wheeziness, he says. “Some come to think of their wheeziness or cough as normal or acceptable, unfortunately, but they should be making the connection between that and possible early lung cancer.”
Is it because smokers feel embarrassed in front of GPs about not being able to give up cigarettes, just as overweight people feel bad about not being able to lose weight?
“We do know that over 80% of smokers want to quit and have tried on numerous occasions,” he says.
so there is an element of that and of ‘The doctor may get at me again about my smoking.’ That may make them resistant to going to the GP again.
"The addiction is very, very strong too, of course, so it is difficult to break."
So what are the symptoms?
See your doctor early if you have these symptoms:
• A cough that doesn’t go away or a change in a long-term cough.• Feeling short of breath or wheezing.• Repeated chest infections that won’t go away, even after antibiotics.• Coughing up blood-stained phlegm.• Pain in your chest, especially when you cough or breathe in.• Feeling more tired than usual and/or unexplained weight loss.• Hoarse voice, problems swallowing or swelling in the face or neck. “Awareness of these symptoms is crucial,” Kevin says. “It is important to get any of them checked out. You shouldn’t be living with wheeziness, a cough or repeated chest infections that won’t go away even after antibiotics.
You should ask your GP to refer you for a chest X-ray. Early detection leads to better outcomes.
"If people would go to the doctor sooner and get treated earlier, if it’s needed, those survival rates would be much better.”
SURPRISED at reduced AWARENESS
The Irish Cancer Society was surprised that awareness levels of the symptoms of lung cancer had dropped.
“It was disappointing for us to hear that almost one in three people were unable to name any symptom of lung cancer, as we are constantly trying to put the message out there about signs and symptoms and will be doing so again in this awareness month.”
Again, Kevin’s advice is to talk to a health professional about unusual symptoms. “Take time to get checked out. Even people who quit smoking a number of years ago should do so.”
GO ONLINE TO CHECK YOUR SYMPTOMS
The Irish Cancer Society now has a helpful online lung health checker on its website. “It’s a list of basic questions that people can consider and reflect on. You can print out your report and take it to your GP to encourage the conversation about your lung health,” Kevin explains.
Don’t forget that there are lots of supports for people who want to quit and that treatments for lung cancer have improved hugely too.
"The earlier it is diagnosed, the more options are available to people. It’s certainly a more positive picture than years ago.”
YARD WARNING – DON’T SMOKE
And what of our three now-grown-up children who never knew their dad’s father? Do they smoke?
Like the generation before them, who lost their father to lung cancer, they don’t.
And I still remember the day when a box of cigarettes accidentally fell out of one offspring’s pocket in the yard when he was 15 – and where exactly he was told by his father they’d be put if such (expletive-deleted) things were ever seen in his possession again.
The years of pain, loss and anger were evident in that outburst from the man who, as a boy, often cycled to the village shop for groceries including the very items – cigarettes – that would ultimately rob him and his children to come. CL
NOTE: There is no early screening for lung cancer programme in Ireland as yet.
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I’ve a personal interest in lung cancer awareness – an axe to grind, even. That’s because lung cancer robbed my children of their grandfather, on their father’s side.
A farmer and contractor all his life, he died too young, in January 1980, within months of late diagnosis, at the age of 60 – two years before his first grandchild was born. Cigarettes were the thieves of his lungs.
It has been an immeasurable loss for our family – unquantifiable, really. Let’s count a few ways: no grandfather to jiggle them on his knee or to show them the animals in the yard; to take them to the co-op; to walk the crops with them; pass on the many tillage and machinery skills he had; to talk sense to them when they needed it; to have a bond with him that many children have with their grandparents, particularly those who live close by.
I loved my own grandfather who lived on our farm mainly because he had more time to answer “why” questions than very busy parents.
Tragically, photographs and passed-on stories are all our children and their two cousins will ever have of their grandfather.
Born in 1919 in Co Wexford, he started on Woodbines as a school child, as several of his brothers did – single cigarettes bought with halfpennies, until a wage and age made buying full packets possible. If you couldn’t afford a packet you could afford one, and there you were then: one step on the treadmill of buying and perhaps dying because of them, if you were unlucky.
CIGARETTES SOLD SINGLY NEAR SCHOOLS
The same craic was still going on when I was a child in the late 1960s: shops near schools selling them in ones and twos – but nobody was aware then, unfortunately, of the health implications of cigarettes. Wasn’t it the era when smoking in films was the norm and cigarette ads on television were still portraying what are killers as being “cool as a mountain stream”, no less?
Who could blame anyone, then, for becoming addicted? Nicotine is a seriously addictive drug, after all. Even some doctors were smoking them then, blissfully unaware of their dangers. Think of the blue plumes in Call The Midwife, set in the 1950s.
Thankfully, the truth is known now and, while there are still too many people smoking, there is enforced legislation to stop the kind of selling that got young people hooked so early back then.
a HORRIBLE SIGHT
How far we’d come as a society actually came home to me at Dublin Airport over New Year. Browsing in the duty-free section, I passed the stands of multi-pack cigarettes that bore graphic images of cancer-affected lungs. Horrible pictures, all lined up beside one another, rows and rows of them.
It was enough to turn your stomach, as well as turning you off smoking and making you angry that cigarettes are still on sale at all and that smoking still causes nine out of 10 deaths from lung cancer.
Hearing then, in new research from the Global Lung Cancer Coalition (GLCC), that fewer people in Ireland could name the signs and symptoms of lung cancer in 2017 than in 2013 was a bit of a shock. What? In this day and age, where smoking implications are shoved under the spotlight again and again? It didn’t make sense.
Those who have lung cancer are being diagnosed late in emergency departments, too, rather than via their GP, leading to poor outcomes.
What’s going on? Is all the stop-smoking/don’t-start-smoking advice going in one ear and out the other? Or are there different factors at play?
Kevin O’Hagan, cancer prevention manager with the Irish Cancer Society says there are a number of reasons why people are leaving it late to present with lung cancer.
“The latest figures from the global study referred to say there is very little awareness of cancer symptoms, such as a cough that doesn’t go away or repeated chest infections.
I think some people underplay some of the symptoms associated with lung cancer and underestimate their severity.
"Some of the symptoms of lung cancer could be confused with normal run of the mill conditions, but together they can all add up to something very serious,” says Kevin.
Many smokers live with a cough or a wheeziness, he says. “Some come to think of their wheeziness or cough as normal or acceptable, unfortunately, but they should be making the connection between that and possible early lung cancer.”
Is it because smokers feel embarrassed in front of GPs about not being able to give up cigarettes, just as overweight people feel bad about not being able to lose weight?
“We do know that over 80% of smokers want to quit and have tried on numerous occasions,” he says.
so there is an element of that and of ‘The doctor may get at me again about my smoking.’ That may make them resistant to going to the GP again.
"The addiction is very, very strong too, of course, so it is difficult to break."
So what are the symptoms?
See your doctor early if you have these symptoms:
• A cough that doesn’t go away or a change in a long-term cough.• Feeling short of breath or wheezing.• Repeated chest infections that won’t go away, even after antibiotics.• Coughing up blood-stained phlegm.• Pain in your chest, especially when you cough or breathe in.• Feeling more tired than usual and/or unexplained weight loss.• Hoarse voice, problems swallowing or swelling in the face or neck. “Awareness of these symptoms is crucial,” Kevin says. “It is important to get any of them checked out. You shouldn’t be living with wheeziness, a cough or repeated chest infections that won’t go away even after antibiotics.
You should ask your GP to refer you for a chest X-ray. Early detection leads to better outcomes.
"If people would go to the doctor sooner and get treated earlier, if it’s needed, those survival rates would be much better.”
SURPRISED at reduced AWARENESS
The Irish Cancer Society was surprised that awareness levels of the symptoms of lung cancer had dropped.
“It was disappointing for us to hear that almost one in three people were unable to name any symptom of lung cancer, as we are constantly trying to put the message out there about signs and symptoms and will be doing so again in this awareness month.”
Again, Kevin’s advice is to talk to a health professional about unusual symptoms. “Take time to get checked out. Even people who quit smoking a number of years ago should do so.”
GO ONLINE TO CHECK YOUR SYMPTOMS
The Irish Cancer Society now has a helpful online lung health checker on its website. “It’s a list of basic questions that people can consider and reflect on. You can print out your report and take it to your GP to encourage the conversation about your lung health,” Kevin explains.
Don’t forget that there are lots of supports for people who want to quit and that treatments for lung cancer have improved hugely too.
"The earlier it is diagnosed, the more options are available to people. It’s certainly a more positive picture than years ago.”
YARD WARNING – DON’T SMOKE
And what of our three now-grown-up children who never knew their dad’s father? Do they smoke?
Like the generation before them, who lost their father to lung cancer, they don’t.
And I still remember the day when a box of cigarettes accidentally fell out of one offspring’s pocket in the yard when he was 15 – and where exactly he was told by his father they’d be put if such (expletive-deleted) things were ever seen in his possession again.
The years of pain, loss and anger were evident in that outburst from the man who, as a boy, often cycled to the village shop for groceries including the very items – cigarettes – that would ultimately rob him and his children to come. CL
NOTE: There is no early screening for lung cancer programme in Ireland as yet.
Read more
Breathe uneasy - all you need to know about sinusitis
Tackle your health costs in 2018
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