News

Lung cancer survivor fights for those who can't

By Lynne Hendricks
Correspondent
Published: November 6, 2008

AMESBURY — As a blond, blue-eyed young mother of three boys, Diane Legg doesn't fit the profile of a typical lung cancer patient. Having survived four years from the time she was first diagnosed in 2004, Legg knows she's beaten the odds where her deadly disease is concerned. And she's telling anyone who'll listen how she did it, in an effort to educate people about lung cancer.

Legg is being honored tonight by the American Lung Association at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Boston, and when she takes to the podium, she'll likely talk about the chance trip to Anna Jaques Hospital for a back injury that resulted in her receiving a rare early diagnosis. She'll perhaps share the story of a close family friend and nonsmoking mother of three, Susan Levinsky, who battled alongside Legg with the same disease but died nine months later while Legg was undergoing her second round of chemotherapy. And she'll no doubt talk about why losing her friend gave her strength to step outside her personal pain and begin the oftentimes lonely work of advocating for those who, unlike her, were not given time to lobby for a cure.

"I was blessed with the gift of time, which most people diagnosed with lung cancer are not," Legg said. "Advocacy comes from the survivors, but when 80 percent of those diagnosed are at late state, they're not going to put their time in advocacy. They're trying to fight to stay alive."

Legg, who serves as co-director of the Massachusetts chapter of the Lung Cancer Alliance, said more than 160,000 people in the United States will die of lung cancer this year. And 85 percent of those cases will have been diagnosed in the later stages of the disease when the first symptoms become evident. Twice as many women will die of lung cancer this year than breast cancer, and 60 percent of all cases will be discovered in patients who don't smoke.

"It is the No. 1 cancer killer by far," Legg said. "When you look at the statistics of the disease itself, it's totally misunderstood. Sixty percent of the people today who get lung cancer don't smoke today."

As part of her treatment in 2004, Legg had part of her lung removed to avoid the spread of non-small cell adenocarcinoma in her left lobe, but after enduring four rounds of chemotherapy and getting a clean bill of health, cancer re-emerged one year later. Legg smoked casually in college, but didn't have the "pack history" doctors associate with those who contract lung cancer. Yet that's the first question people ask her when learning about her illness.

The stigma of lung cancer keeps people from talking about their disease and is a big reason why it's referred to as a "silent" epidemic, Legg said. People feel guilty for getting the disease, whether they smoked or not.

"Why do people think it's OK to ask me why I got lung cancer," Legg said. "People don't ask why someone gets breast cancer."

Newburyport's Anne Marie (Brennan) Leary is a good friend and supporter of Legg, and when her mother Carol Brennan was diagnosed with lung cancer three years ago, she and her family members learned firsthand how the disease afflicts nonsmokers and smokers alike. Their mother never smoked cigarettes, and in fact was ahead of her time in that regard — cautioning her children not to wear perfume lest they inhale dangerous chemicals and advocating a healthy lifestyle for the family.

Leary joins her father and siblings in supporting Legg and The Lung Cancer Alliance in honor of her mother. Members of the Brennan family plan to attend the event in Boston tonight, which coincidentally takes place on the three-year anniversary of Carol Brennan's passing.

Leary said working to spread awareness of her disease is something that would have made her mother happy.

"She really fought for what she believed in," Leary said. "The thing that makes her death of lung cancer so hard for us, is that she was a healthy person, and also really before her time in trying to minimize exposure to chemicals and smoking."

To illustrate the stigma attached to a lung cancer diagnosis, Legg tells the story of a Lung Cancer Alliance co-director's sister, who quit smoking years before she was diagnosed with the disease and before dying requested family members to tell people she'd died of breast cancer instead of lung cancer.

"That says a lot about this disease," Legg said. "People are ashamed of it because maybe they smoked a cigarette at some point in their life and they blame themselves."

Legg said with a simple preventative CT scan, the survivability rate of lung cancer would shoot from 15 percent to 90 percent, and with more advocacy there's even a possibility of finding a cure.

While the symptoms of her disease are so far nonexistent, Legg feels it's her responsibility to volunteer as much time as she can to organizations like Lung Cancer Alliance, the Dana Farber Institute and the Lung Cancer Foundation of America. Last spring, she quit a 20-year career with General Electric to devote all her time to that work and to spend more time with her husband and 5-, 10-, and 12-year-old sons.

This past Monday, Legg was relieved to find a recent scan showed the spots in her lung had not changed since her last scan, meaning everything is "status quo." She admits every time she goes in for a scan, she and her husband fret over the potential outcome.

"We always look at each other when it comes time for a scan, keeping our fingers crossed and praying like hell that nothing has progressed and we don't have to do any major work," Legg said.

Then when the scan is over, she and the family sink back into normalcy — friends' houses and hockey practices and more time to be happy with one another. Legg practices meditation visualization techniques known to help manage illness and takes good care of herself — even employing therapeutic remedies like acupuncture to keep her immune system strong. Her children aren't worried for her because she's not worried for herself, she said.

"This is a day we have that we've been given, and we don't know what tomorrow will bring," she tells them. "So let's make sure today is a great one."