Cork mum awaits crucial lung cancer scan result

The stigma surrounding lung cancer is ‘appalling and unnecessary’, a Cork mother has said, as the disease leaves her terrified of being taken from her children.

Gillian Ryan has been receiving treatment since being diagnosed in 2021, aged just 40. This month she faces a crucial scan.

“I have had six-monthly scans for the past few years and at my most recent scan in April 2024 I was told that a lump had been growing in my lower lobe for over a year,” she said.

“Unfortunately, it has not been reported by the radiologist until now, which is why it has doubled in size.”

She and her family in Bandon will make a plan for what comes next after this repeat scan.

“Am I scared? No, I am absolutely terrified,” she said.

Terrified of leaving the ones I love too soon. I try to stay positive and that’s true most days, but in the middle of the night, when the silence is deafening, the thoughts creep in like water on a sinking ship and leave you gasping for air.

The avid runner and non-smoker’s life has already changed, she explained: “I can no longer run or exercise because my lung has been removed.”

'Lung cancer has very poor survival rates, receives minimal funding and the stigma surrounding it is horrible and unnecessary.'

She says more information and faster early detection are critical to getting more survivors of this cancer.

“Lung cancer has a very poor survival rate, receives minimal funding and the stigma surrounding it is horrible and unnecessary,” she said.

“More and more young women and men who have never smoked a day in their lives are being diagnosed with cancer.”

Reflecting on the weeks surrounding her 40th birthday in 2021, she said that although her life was very good, she knew something was wrong.

“I went from running 6 miles most days and training four or five times a week, to barely being able to climb a flight of stairs without needing a break,” she said.

“I nourished my body with healthy food, and I didn’t abuse it. I was proud of the body I had; it just didn’t work as well for me as it did before.

She was completely unprepared for the devastating diagnosis, as there was no history of lung cancer in her family.

“I died there and then,” she said.

“My carefree, invincible, amazing, beautiful, happy life was all taken away by those three words. You have cancer.”

In addition to her own trauma, she described telling her family, “I felt so guilty, guilty that I had to give them this terrible news, guilty that they were now also affected by cancer, it wasn’t my fault.”

She works with the Marie Keating Foundation, which marks Lung Cancer Awareness Month in November.

While tobacco smoking is responsible for approximately 85% of lung cancer cases, between 10% and 15% of lung cancer cases in Western countries occur in non-smokers.

Liz Yeates, CEO of the Marie Keating Foundation, said: “Anyone with lungs can get lung cancer. It’s time to focus on support, not judgment.”

The charity also reiterated its call for the government to introduce a national lung cancer screening programme. This would enable earlier detection, in the same way that breast cancer is already being screened for, for example.