By DANE LILLINGSTONE
NOVEMBER is lung cancer awareness month – the disease is one of the leading causes of death in Australia with 11,000 people diagnosed every year.
One lady from Texas has taken to a cookbook to raise awareness for the disease.
Rebecca Dunn started a project with her mum Frances after Frances was diagnosed with lung cancer in 2013. Together they started making the Lung Cancer Warriors’ Cookbook to raise awareness for lung cancer and remove the stigma of it being a smokers’ disease, as Frances never smoked.
Frances passed away in April this year at the age of 54 but Rebecca and her sister continued the project in her honour.
Rebecca said she was shocked when her mother was diagnosed just before Christmas in 2013 as she had never been a smoker and doctors had initially thought it wasn’t serious.
“They sent mum to Toowoomba Base Hospital for further testing,” she said
“She was up there for numerous weeks while they did tests, took samples and found out that the black spots were cancer in her hip and spine, however they were not the primary cancer. So more testing occurred and that is when we got the horrifying news that mum had Stage IV metastatic Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer. Mum was a lifelong never smoker.”
Rebecca said that upon hearing the lack of support for lung cancer, her mother decided to do something to raise awareness.
“After talking to other patients with lung cancer and hearing their stories and learning that lung cancer had next to no support from the Cancer Council and other places, mum wanted to make a difference. Her dream was to help raise awareness and funding for early detection tests for lung cancer as there are none, while removing the stigma that lung cancer is only a smoker’s disease, which it is not,” she said.
“That’s when I remembered mum had helped compile a cookbook for the local church when we were kids. Mum absolutely loved the idea of doing a cookbook that featured lung cancer warriors around the world.”
The cookbook is set to be released on 14 November, at Shine a Light morning tea at Texas Treats from 9.30 am to 11.30am. It will also be available online via global book distributors such as Amazon, Fishpond, The Book Depository, Booktopia, and The Nile. You can also visit www.thelungcancerwarriorscookbook.com for more information.
The Lung Cancer Network Australia, previously known as Kylie Johnston Lung Cancer Network, is an initiative of the Lung Foundation Australia.
