I too am sorry to hear of Jean’s passing. I actually thought about her earlier this week when a new member posed a question about people getting lung cancer from quitting smoking. I was thinking of people who found out they had lung cancer after they had quit smoking, Jean being one of them.

I need to point out again that people don’t increase their risks of getting lung cancer from quitting smoking or quitting too soon; they increased their risks of getting lung cancer from smoking too long. 

It is easy to see though how some people have this misperception. I had a slide I used to use in all of my presentations while I was with the American Cancer Society back in the mid to late 1970’s The slide showed how the risk of lung cancer decreased over time, to a point that in about 10 years after quitting the risk of dying from lung cancer was not much greater than that of people who had never smoked. 

One alarming thing about the slide though was how the death rate from lung cancer was higher for people who had quit for one year or less.

I am going to attach a scanned in version of the exact slide below.

I need to point out that since the time the slide was produced, there have been modifications to the statistics used. The current statistics show that the risks of dying from lung cancer are cut in half at the ten year mark now. Quit Smoking Recovery Timetable

At the time I used this slide though, if I were to show it to a group and not offer up an explanation it would have likely scared the audience into not quitting. The reason for the high death rate for people who were off for one year or less was not because quitting smoking caused lung cancer in this population. Some of these people were smokers who when they found out that they had lung cancer then decided that it was now time to quit. Unfortunately quitting smoking never caused their newly diagnosed lung cancer to go away, and most of these people still ended up succumbing to the disease.

There were also likely a fair number of people represented in these stats who had quit smoking because they were just feeling bad and were now trying to avoid getting lung cancer. Unfortunately some of these people were feeling bad because they had lung cancer but did not yet know they had it. So some of these one year or less quitters were actually people who had undiagnosed lung cancers at the time they quit, who then found out during that year that they had lung cancer and then died with months of diagnosis.

Jean's story basically fits into the second scenario described here. She likely quit smoking to reduce her risk of developing a smoking related illness but unfortunately already had the cancer growing inside of her.

Here is how Jean informed our members of her diagnosis six months ago, just when she had reached her six month mark of being smoke free:

"The reason for this post at this time, I have just now worked up the nerve to let all my Freedom Buddies know that I was diagnosed with cancer just before Mothers Day, and have had a very hard time letting my family and friends know, I feel so guilty, for having smoked all these years and causing this disease to play havoc with me and my family, to all you wishful quitters out there, there is nothing, I MEAN NOTHING worse then having to tell those you hold so dear of such a catastrophe, the cancer has spread to my spine, skull, rib cage, kidneys, lymph (whatever and of course a large tumor in the right lung. There is no hope for a cure I have been told, they do have the means to keep me comfortable and give a better quality of life for the remaining time. "

Her words were powerful and haunting back then, and are just as tragic now. I hope all new readers here today who may just be quitting and feel that they may be having a tough time from smoking withdrawals take to heart Jean's commentary of:

"there is nothing, I MEAN NOTHING worse then having to tell those you hold so dear of such a catastrophe, the cancer has spread to my spine, skull, rib cage, kidneys, lymph (whatever and of course a large tumor in the right lung. There is no hope for a cure I have been told, they do have the means to keep me comfortable and give a better quality of life for the remaining time. "

 That sentence just deserved to be repeated.

Thank you Gitte for notifying us about Jean's passing. A few months back you had requested that Jean's post be added to the string "A fate worse than death" - quitting?. You will see that her post It Is never too Late was linked in the 79th post in that string. You can tell from the way Jean delivered the message above she wanted her experience to benefit others. I am not sure if you have contact with Jean's family but if you do please pass along our condolences. Also let them know that Jean's participation at our board have likely helped many other people and families to avoid having to face similar circumstances. I know this was important to Jean and I suspect this knowledge may also be appreciated by her family.

I hope that all new readers who are just coming here today and reading Jean's story will realize how important it is to not put off quitting until some future date when you might be more ready; to just quit today and to start to immediately reduce your risk of ever having to face a similar fate.  Quitting smoking is truly and effort to save your health and your life. I also hope that all of our readers who are now successful ex-smokers continue to recognize that the way to continue to reduce your risks of ever having to face a similar fate is to stick to the personal commitment that you have already made to never take another puff.

Joel