Veronica M., CT

My name is Veronica and I live in Bloomfield Connecticut. I would like to share my story with you and the impact that lung cancer has had on my family.

My only child, Rashad at 27 years old was residing in Orlando, Florida. He was working at Advent Health hospital as a monitor tech. He ate well and he was in great physical shape. He exercised all the time. In November 2019 late one night he called me. He was in a lot of pain on his right side. It sounded like a kidney stone (which he had before), so I told him that if he could get himself to the emergency room to go there and let them know that he believes that this is a kidney stone and they can take it from there.

The hospital did an ultrasound. They saw that it was a kidney stone and also the ultrasound showed a small portion of his lower right lung. They told him it looked like cancer.

He called me with the news. I was devastated! I flew down a couple of days later. We met with his oncologist. My son was diagnosed with lung cancer. Our world was turned upside down. He started his chemotherapy during a time when the world was shut down due to COVID-19 in 2020. The chemotherapy wasn’t working to stop the cancer.  The next option was to remove the lung.

They went in to remove the lung only to discover that the cancer had spread to his thymus gland and the lining of his heart. My son’s cancer was very aggressive. The doctor tried immunotherapy and radiation. Nothing else seemed to work. My son soon lost his battle two years later on October 31, 2021 at the age of 29. My son was fortunate enough to have health insurance through his employer.

I couldn’t imagine a family going through all of this with no medical coverage.

That’s why I am going to Washington D.C. to urge my representatives to support Medicaid, the CDC and NIH. We need to support those that are diagnosed with lung cancer. It’s a long road. They’re gonna need a lot of treatment and a lot of medication and with Medicaid, they’ll be able to get the care that they deserve.

My other ask is that we support the CDC. They need support to get crucial information out to health care providers and communities about treating lung cancer.

My last ask is for support of NIH. They work nonstop with clinical trials trying to find ways to hopefully eliminate lung cancer in our future.