My mom, like many women, battled breast cancer. And, like many women, won that battle. Several years after her victory, though, a malignant lesion was discovered on her lung. Our first thought was that the breast cancer had reared its ugly head for a rematch. When a biopsy determined that the cancerous cells actually originated in the lungs, the diagnosis was one that shocked the entire family: lung cancer. Stage IV lung cancer. My mom had never smoked a cigarette in her life. She had never been exposed to second-hand smoke, as neither her parents nor my father ever smoked. In fact, she detested being around smoke. She was one of the statistics you hear about.
