Briony Scott, 52, who has never smoked and spent her life telling teens not to do drugs or smoke, has been diagnosed with lung cancer. And because she has never smoked, 'I just hadn't expected it to be me,' said the mother of three.
"A lung cancer? Really?" Briony Scott wrote in The Sydney Morning Herald. "I don't smoke, and have spent my life telling teenagers not to smoke or do drugs," she added.
On August 26, 2015, Briony Scott was detected with lung cancer. Few weeks before her diagnosis, she caught a cough which led her to see a medical doctor. The doctor sent her for an X-ray. The result of her X-ray revealed a tumor in her lungs.
Scott, who had never smoked even once, had a lung cancer. The day she knew she had lung cancer "is the day that life as I knew it was over," Scott reveals. However, she did not give up. She said that she intended to follow what the other parents and girls had done when they were faced with the same challenges. She is full to the brim of hope that she will beat cancer.
Scott took a break from her work to treat cancer. Few months after she was diagnosed with cancer, Scott underwent "smorgasbord of treatments - radiotherapy, surgery, and chemotherapy." "You do everything you can to extend your life, but you will not spend it waiting for the end to come," Scott says.
One year later after her battle with lung cancer, Scott is now doing great and is back managing Wenona School, doing what she loves to do. Finally, Briony Scott has been cancer-free.
Though cigarette smoking is cited as the undoubted cause of cancers in lungs, however not all lung cancer cases occur in former smokers or smokers. Each year, more than 170,000 people in the United States develop cancer in the lungs, and roughly 10 percent or 17,000 conditions transpire on non-smokers. Experts have identified some circumstances and conditions which can increase the chance of non-smokers to develop this disease. This includes passive smoking, radon gas, asbestos, heredity and air pollution.
