I received this email from a mother who asked that I add this to my web site for others to read!

Hi Blair.

I thought I would send you my son's story that he read in front of his class after his father died of lung cancer at the age of 39.  When Jason read to his class he was 13.  The teacher said that it was touching to hear him tell his story and everyone listened attentively even when the bell rang.  So, I then decided to send his story to the Lung Association and they used it in one of their campaign's which brought in over $600,000.00.  Then they did a video with him and we were invited to a banquet so that they could give Jason a plaque.  It was quite memorable.  Attached is the story that they printed.  So I thought I would share his story with you.

MY SPEECH  - CANCER AND SMOKING ~ by Jason

It all started in January 1996, my grandmother, my dad’s mother found out she had lung cancer and told us she had 6 months to a year to live. She had 3 sisters who also died of lung cancer. She asked my dad to please get checked since he hadn’t been to a doctor in 4 years. So he went to make her happy. That is how he found out he had a tumor on his lung. They did exploratory surgery in his lungs to see how advanced his cancer was. Then they did many cat scans and tests after test to find out that his cancer had spread anywhere else, metastasized. That means that the cancer was advanced and had traveled through his blood and went to other parts of his body. He had other tumors one in his neck the size of an olive and one on his brain the size of a pea. When they told him the one on his neck was the size of an olive - he said “Why did they say the size of an olive - I hate olives they should have said a grape or something” My dad was always joking - even when he got bad news he never complained. The tumors were small but size doesn’t matter for lung cancer anyway. Some cancers are better than others. Lung cancer is a bad one to have. Chances of surviving it are very very small if it hasn’t mestastisized and his had. The major cause of Lung cancer is smoking.

While all of this was happening his mother, my grandmother who was 59 years old passed away - she didn’t even live 3 months. One good thing she never knew that my Dad had Cancer. So my Dad had to start fighting his cancer. He wasn’t going to give up. He loved life and wanted to live. First, he started getting chemotherapy for his lung. He was lucky he didn’t get sick from the chemo. Lung cancer tumors always shrink and sometimes disappear but they always come back. His disappeared. We were really happy. My mother had him on special diets, herbal medicine teas, she was trying everything. They come back stronger. Then they wanted to remove the on e on his brain. He had to have brain surgery awake. The first time he went in they screw a halo on your head and after they do a cat scan. Well my Dad got the best news they couldn’t find it. It had disappeared too. The doctors couldn’t understand it. We were all happy.

But a month after he had a big seizure and we found out that it was back. Because the tumor on his brain was near his - motor skills by that I mean - it is what makes you walk and talk. He had to be awake during all of the surgery and they screwed a halo to his skull with 4 screws again. That halo was made out of metal and very heavy. The reason for that is so that he wouldn’t be able to move while they removed the tumor. Everything went Ok. But when he went for a test 2 weeks after. They said it looked like it was growing back but that radiation would take care of it. After that he had to go for radiation on his brain. Not even a week after he finished the radiation he had a big seizure 3 para medics had trouble to keep him down He had to take steroids for the swelling on his brain. He gained weight and lost all of his hair. Still he didn’t complain.. After that big seizure, he was a little bit weak on one side of his body. That is when bad things started to happen. We found out Christmas eve that the tumor in his brain came back and it was bigger. He had many smaller seizures after that but my Mom was able to help him with the small ones. You never knew when they would come. He had trouble speaking and but he still never complained. They told him they could give him a big dose of radiation on his brain but he would have to wear that metal halo screwed to his skull again. He didn’t care, he wanted to live so much. He would have done anything. So they screwed that halo again to his brain for the third time. He was so brave, and never again complained. One morning he had trouble breathing my Mom drove him for his radiation treatment on his lungs because the tumor on his lungs came back. His lung had collapsed. So they admitted him and he never came back out. They put a hole in his chest so that they could put a tube to drain the water. He got worse every day. He was on morphine and oxygen. He was almost always sleeping and if he wasn’t sleeping he was in a lot of pain.

My Dad never complained so if he said he was in pain - he was in a lot of pain. It must have been awful pain. My mom stayed at the hospital with him the whole time day and night. She never left him. She slept there with him every night to take care of him and so he wouldn’t be alone. He just always hoped that he would beat it. If you would have seen him you would have never known that he had cancer, because my Dad was always a happy person. He told my Mom he was lucky to have her take care of him he never complained and he never never said to anybody why me. Anyway I think my Dad was a Hero. Everything he went through, and he never complained once. Never! On March 6, 1997 my Dad passed away. He died of lung cancer. He was only 39 years old. He was my Buddy, my Hero, I miss him very much. The only good thing from all of this my brother and my mother quit smoking. So what I am saying is that I think they should ban cigarettes. Maybe they should organize trips to the hospitals so people can see the pain and the suffering that could be ahead of them if they don’t stop smoking. Maybe if they saw the suffering it would scare them.

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