That’s a date that Monica Rinehart
will never forget.
“My husband and I quit smoking cold turkey,” she says.
So 22 years later, it was no surprise that Rinehart was both
angry and confused when she learned that she had lung cancer.
JULY 3, 1988.
“I had given up this habit, and now it
felt like it hadn’t paid off,” the Garland high
school teacher says.
But there are two things she keeps in mind.
One, smoking was most likely not the
cause of her lung cancer.
“For most patients, about 15 years after
quitting smoking, their risk of lung cancer
is almost back to normal, as if they’d never
started smoking,” says Alan Trumbly, DO,
medical oncologist at Methodist Richardson
Cancer Center. He touts quitting smoking
as the No. 1 way to prevent lung cancer —
or any cancer, for that matter.
Two, Rinehart is one of the lucky ones,
because her cancer was caught early.
No longer ‘the walking dead’
Rinehart’s story starts at the beginning of the
2010–11 school year, when a persistent cough
began interrupting her teaching. She chalked
it up to allergies, until one coughing fit had
her convinced that she had broken a rib.
“My primary care doctor did an X-ray,
and that’s when they found the tumor,”
says Rinehart, who learned the news right
before the holidays. “I didn’t want to ruin
Christmas, but at the same time, I was
thinking, ‘I’m the walking dead.’”
A biopsy confirmed that the tumor
in her right lung was cancerous. It was
removed with a lobectomy, and Dr. Trumbly
prescribed a short course of chemotherapy
to make sure no cancer remained.
“It was really that easy: I had surgery,
I had chemo, and I got on with my life,”
Rinehart says.
New hope for people at risk
In January, Rinehart celebrated her
three-year cancer-free anniversary — an
anniversary she might not have had if
her cancer hadn’t been caught at stage II.
Stage III would have cut her chances in half.
Stage IV would have given her no chance.
Dr. Trumbly says Rinehart’s story is
the perfect illustration of why Methodist
Richardson Medical Center began offering
discounted low-dose CT lung screenings for
patients at high risk for lung cancer last fall.
“This screening has a 20 percent rate
for preventing death — that’s higher
than some mammogram studies for
breast cancer, and it’s a similar dose of
radiation,” Dr. Trumbly says.
While the U.S. Preventive Services
Task Force, American Cancer Society, and
many other organizations have endorsed
the lifesaving screening, most insurance
companies have not started covering it. To
make it easier for patients to catch cancer
early, Methodist Richardson offers the exam,
reading, and report for only $249.
“People would be crazy not to get this
test,” Rinehart says. “Cancer doesn’t just hit
you; it hits everyone who knows you. Why
waste your family? Why waste your whole
life if you could take cancer head-on?”
You might be a
candidate for CT
lung screening if you
are between ages 55
and 75 and have one
of the following
smoking histories:
w
w
Current smoker with a
30-pack-year smoking
history (smoked
one pack a day for
30 years or two packs
a day for 15 years)
w
w
Former smoker (quit
less than 15 years
ago) and have a
30-pack-year history.
Register today for this annual event benefiting the Methodist Richardson Cancer
Center. Your support helps to bring new technology and programs to the Cancer
Center, as well as provide charity care for patients facing financial challenges.
You can participate in the 16-, 40-, or 64-mile bike ride. Enjoy live music and
food and beverages at the start and finish.
For details, see page 2 or visit
Methodist Richardson
Medical Center
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❁
Spring 2014
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