We kept coming back to this idea: I don’t fit the profile. I don’t fit the profile. I was mountain biking, doing a lot of hiking, rock climbing and bouldering. I was fit, healthy, and active. My father-in-law died of lung cancer nearly 11 years ago, so I was always aware of it, but I never thought it could possibly happen to me. I didn’t realize that basically anybody with lungs can get lung cancer.
My symptoms started around the time of the Queen’s Jubilee in 2022. I noticed a squeaky breathing sound and a slightly husky voice. I didn’t think much of it — I assumed it was stress. The symptoms seemed to go away for a while. Then toward the end of August and into September 2022, the squeaky breathing came back. It sounded creaky and crackly, and I developed a dry cough.
I went to my GP, and she was fantastic. She examined my chest and said she couldn’t hear anything concerning but wanted to send me for an X-ray just in case. A couple of weeks later, I had the X-ray, and that’s when everything really started moving. They reassured me at first, saying it was highly unlikely to be lung cancer. I wasn’t the traditional profile. I wasn’t what they would expect from a lung cancer patient. They thought it was most likely an infection.
When I received the stage four diagnosis, it felt as though my world completely collapsed. Your first thought is, how long have I got? As a mom, you immediately think, who’s going to look after my children? Who’s going to look after my husband? It’s not just your world that feels destroyed — it’s your whole family’s.
But during that same phone call, my lung nurse told me not to panic. She explained that I could have osimertinib, a gene-targeted therapy that could extend my life and potentially allow me to live a fairly normal life. She said the quality of life on it could be fantastic — and she was right. I’ve been on it for nearly nine months now.
When you hear stage four, you assume you only have weeks, maybe months. But I’m still here, living with it. My brain metastases are no longer visible on scans. There’s no activity in my lymph nodes, and the diameter of my main tumor has reduced by 50%.
What has surprised me most is that I’m still living my life. You expect everything to stop with a stage four diagnosis. You expect to be incredibly ill, to feel constant nausea from chemotherapy, to be in severe pain. I thought it would completely curtail my ability to do anything. But I still walk the dogs every day. There’s a big hill near our house that we climb daily. I’m planning to climb Scafell Pike in September. A few weeks ago, I climbed a mountain in Scotland. I still occasionally go out on my mountain bike.
When you have stage four lung cancer, it’s always there. You can’t escape it. It sits on your shoulder, reminding you that it’s still present. But you can live a full life with stage four lung cancer.
I’ve adopted an “I get to” attitude rather than an “I have to” attitude. I get to walk the dogs. I get to go to the shops. I get to clean my house. And when you look at life that way, you realize how incredibly lucky you are to have these things in your life.
Natasha's lung cancer story
Re: Natasha's lung cancer story
Jen, your strength as a mother shines through every word. That moment of hearing “they got it all” is pure grace after unimaginable fear. Because of dedicated doctors and continued pediatric cancer research, more families can hold onto hope. Reece’s story is powerful proof that cures are possible.
