Emily Miner gave up smoking at age 6. "I was on a camping trip with my cousins," the 39-year-old Californian recalls. As the family sat around the campfire, her uncle lit a cigar. Intrigued by the sharp scent of the smoke, Emily persuaded him to let her try it. "I took a huge puff and turned green," she says. "That was it for me."
Thirty years later, Emily was a picture of healthy living: She ran a family winery in Napa Valley with her husband, Dave, had two young daughters, and was training for a half—marathon. So the discovery that a deadly disease was ravaging her was nothing short of shocking.
It started out as back pain, a recurring twinge. When an MRI showed a tumor on her spine and spots on her lungs, Emily and her oncologist assumed it must be breast cancer that had spread, a diagnosis not unknown in young, healthy women. No one was prepared for the biopsy result, which showed that Emily had lung cancer that had metastasized to her spine.
The number of lung cancer deaths among American women has grown by 600 percent since 1950. The disease is highly fatal, killing more women each year than breast and all gynecologic cancers combined. Today, one in every 16 women will develop lung cancer. And though the increase in its incidence is most likely due to a surge in the number of women smokers, nonsmokers aren't immune, says Michael Thun, M.D., vice president emeritus and research director of epidemiology for the American Cancer Society.
"No one's risk is zero," Emily says emphatically. "Look at me."
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