... continued from page 33. [Wake up call]
What followed were months of uncertainty.
I endured hospital stays, extensive testing, multiple rounds of antibiotics, and two biopsies. Each test brought more questions
than answers. Seven months after that emergency room visit, at just 27 years old,
I received a diagnosis that felt impossible
for someone my age: Invasive Mucinous Adenocarcinoma. lung cancer.
Biomarker testing followed, searching for a genetic explanation that might explain why
a young, otherwise healthy woman who had never smoked would develop lung cancer.
The results showed no driving mutations.
No clear cause. No explanation that made
sense. I was left with a question as old as
time: why?
That question refused to let me rest. If it
wasn’t genetic and it wasn’t smoking, then something else had to explain it. That question catapulted me into research. Like
many patients, when medicine reached its limits, I began searching for answers on my
own. That is when I discovered radon.
Before my diagnosis, I had never heard of radon gas. I didn’t know it was radioactive.
I didn’t know it was invisible, odorless, and impossible to detect without testing. I didn’t know it was the second-leading cause of lung cancer overall and the leading cause among people who have never smoked.
I learned that radon forms naturally from the breakdown of uranium in soil and rock and
can seep into homes through foundation cracks, crawl spaces, sump pumps, and other openings.
I learned that long-term exposure can damage lung tissue and significantly increase cancer risk. Most unsettling of all, I learned how common
it is.
I live in a rural single-family home now. I grew up in mobile homes. Radon doesn’t discriminate based on the type of home you live in. Like many people, I assumed that if there were a serious environmental risk in my home, someone would have told me. I was wrong.
At the time of my diagnosis, I did not have a radon reading because I was in the process
of moving into a new home and didn’t yet know radon testing was something I should do.
I never tested the home I lived in before my diagnosis. That unknown still haunts me.
Today, I use a continuous radon monitor in my home. The highest level I have seen is 8.9 pCi/L—more than twice the EPA action level.
I do not currently have a mitigation system installed, but I now have something I didn’t
have before: awareness.
I may never know with certainty what caused
my cancer. But I do know that radon is
a known carcinogen, that it is present in countless homes, and that most people — including me, once—have no idea they are being exposed until it is too late.
Radon does not announce itself. It does not make your home smell different or feel unsafe.
It does not care how old you are, whether you smoke, or how healthy you appear. It accumulates silently over time. Testing is the only way to know.
I share my story because awareness saves lives. If even one person tests their home, asks questions, or takes steps to reduce exposure after reading this, then my voice has done what it was meant to do.
I once asked why. Now I ask something else: Who can I help protect next?
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