Hug Your Kids Today...Just Because.

A day later, we here at mamasnap still find ourselves thinking about the death of Dana Reeve at age 44 survived by her son, Will Reeve, 13. What a cruel twist of fate to lose two parents in two years. I found myself rooting for Dana Reeve when she announced that she had lung cancer just a year after losing her husband Christopher Reeve. I really thought she would beat it. She was young and had such resilience and a positive attitude - NO way could anyone possibly receive this much bad news in such a short time. I thought about my two kids and how young they are and what a heartbreak it would be if I came down with such a disease - so what do all paranoid parents do in 2006 when they get bad news? They search the internet for the BAD THING...in this case, lung cancer.

We have mammograms for breast cancer, colonoscopies for colon cancer and PSA tests for prostate cancer, but when it comes to lung cancer (the biggest killer of all), we aren't even sure who to screen. Dana Reeve didn't even smoke. Lung cancer kills 60 percent of its victims in the first year alone, and within five years, only 15 percent are living. We aren't very good at screening for this type of cancer, so by the time someone comes to their doctor because they are not feeling well, the cancer is often advanced.

Just so I can save you the trouble - here are the symptoms: difficulty breathing, coughing up blood, chest pain, loss of appetite, weight loss and general fatigue. Which basically could be a lot of different things. Some lung cancers do not cause any noticeable symptoms until they are quite advanced and have spread to other parts of the body. Lung cancers are sometimes first detected on routine chest x-rays, but the main method of dignosis is bronchoscopy (a tube scope in the lungs). 80% of lung cancers are caused by smoking, so if you are smoking, think about stopping. Think about your kids. They need you.

One thing's for sure, what Christopher Reeve did for spinal chord injury research, Dana Reeve might do for early detection for lung cancer. Maybe that was their purpose on Earth. It does make one stop and think. So breathe deep and hug your kids today...just because you can.

Source: www.aicr.org.uk / cnn.com