Andre A., IN

At the time, we did not know it, but our journey began with my wife Alesha’s persistent cough in 2017. It was misdiagnosed by our primary care doctor as allergies. She was treated with over-the-counter allergy medication until she got a new Black female doctor in July 2019. At her first appointment, the doctor told Alesha to get a chest X-ray. That X-ray led to a stage 4 diagnosis of non-small cell lung cancer with an EGFR mutation. Alesha was 44, a non-smoker, and our daughters were 14 and 9.

What is surprising about Alesha’s diagnosis is that she was very familiar with cancer as a research nurse for breast cancer. In fact, because her mother died from breast cancer, Alesha qualified for early genetic testing for the disease. She tested negative for the gene that causes breast cancer. We would later uncover, through advanced genetic testing, that she was positive for a gene that causes lung cancer. When we looked deeper into her family history, we discovered that three of her mother’s siblings had died from lung cancer. After Alesha’s diagnosis, two more of her aunts were also diagnosed with the disease.

Alesha was fortunate to be treated by the best thoracic doctors as both a nurse and patient at IU Simon Cancer Center. Through immediate testing, she was diagnosed with an EGFR mutation of her lung cancer, making her a candidate for targeted therapy. This treatment extended her life by 3 1/2 years. Without that testing and those drugs, she may have lived only six to nine months—that is what happened to her Aunt Kathy, who was diagnosed four months after Alesha.

There are three truths about lung cancer: It is the No. 1 cancer killer, anyone with lungs can get lung cancer, and most importantly, research and scientific discoveries—like targeted therapy—gave me and my daughters three additional healthy years with Alesha. Targeted therapy has allowed lung cancer survivors to live longer and better than ever before. However, we want more time with our loved ones. That only happens if funding continues for the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The drug that gives the next young mother with stage 4 lung cancer 10 years is just around the corner, but it is out of reach without funding and support for these organizations. Please continue to fund the NIH and CDC—for my daughters and yours.