Paul B., MD

My lung cancer story began when I was in college nearly 40 years ago when my mother - Pat Billings - was diagnosed with lung cancer. My mother was a smoker. She started to smoke as a young adult, before the first Surgeon General’s report on smoking and lung cancer. As kids, my sisters and I begged her to quit. She was, as I later learned from the tobacco industry documents, a “health conscious smoker” and she fell prey to the industry marketing of “light” and “low” cigarettes. I recall that she smoked “ultra lights,” probably with the mistaken belief they were less risky. Of course we now know that “light” cigarettes were a fraud designed to trick the measurement machines and deceive consumers. We also know that “light cigarette” smokers inhale more deeply which may lead to more lung cancer. 

In the 1960s, the tobacco industry targeted women with messages of liberation, freedom and empowerment. My mother was a smart, talented and outgoing woman. She was part of the generation of women who helped elect the first generation of women to public office. She campaigned for equal rights. Long active in local politics, she served on the local Democratic Central Committee, was a delegate to three Democratic National Conventions and served in the Maryland House of Delegates.

My mom faced her lung cancer head on. She endured aggressive treatments of radiation and chemotherapy that made all her hair fall out and made eating and swallowing food difficult and painful. Always a small person, as a result of the side effects of her treatment she dropped from 125 pounds to about 85 pounds. I understand now, but didn’t appreciate at the time how hard it must have been for her to put on her wig and go out in public to campaign for office and serve in the legislature.

She joined an NIH clinical trial. She would often undergo chemotherapy treatment in the morning and work the rest of the day without complaint, even though she must have felt terrible. Clinical trial participants and their families all hope that the experiment will improve their own health outcomes, but they also join trials to pay it forward to others. My family and I hope that her participation in that clinical trial in the late 1980s contributed to the better treatments and health outcomes that patients experience today.

My mother died just after Christmas 1990, she was only 54 years old. Her passing left a hole in my heart and forever changed my family. I was only 24. She never met any of her grandchildren nor my wife of 32 years. I can’t fully put into words the impact lung cancer has had on me and my family. My family’s experience shaped my life. The spring following my mother’s death, I began what would become a 33 year career with the American Lung Association advocating for policies to help prevent other families from experiencing the toll that lung cancer took on my family and to help people live healthier lives with cleaner air, a safe climate, access to quality and affordable healthcare, and robust public health system to address tobacco, infectious disease, and other threats . Since I retired last year, I am continuing my work as a volunteer advocate. I am not a LUNG FORCE Hero, but my mom was and I will continue to use my voice on her behalf.