2004 Surgeon General's Report—The Health Consequences of Smoking
Video News Release (VNR)—Cancer in the Family
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Transcript
Elizabeth: “You feel separated from the whole world. I mean you feel
like you’re the only one.”
Mathew: “It’s on your mind all the time.”
Voice-over: This is the Tree House Gang…
Malcolm: “I get really mad that she has to suffer.”
Voice-over:…It’s a club no kid wants to join.
Andrew: “I’m Andrew and my Dad has cancer.”
Voice-over: To be a member, you have to have a parent who is surviving…or
has died…from cancer.
Michael: “You may think they’re on a vacation and they’ll come back.”
Voice-over: The Tree House Gang at Atlanta’s DeKalb Medical Center was
formed to help grieving children. Dr. Holly Middleton facilitates
the group.
Dr. Holly Middleton: “When kids come to the Tree House Gang for the first time usually
they are in shock. When a family experiences illness like cancer.
It calls into question everything that family has thought to be
true.”
Voice-over: The only truth for children whose parent has cancer may be
that they never know what will happen next.
Drue: "Like I know we always say I love you to my Mom right before
we go to school or anything just like in case something would happen.”
Voice-over: More than two years ago Drue’s mother Ann was diagnosed with
lung cancer. Within a year following her diagnosis, Ann’s
cancer progressed to Stage 4—or advanced cancer, and had spread
to her lymph nodes and spine.
Ann: “I was diagnosed on Valentine’s Day 2002 and haven’t had a cigarette
since.”
Voice-over: After surgery, debilitating chemotherapy and radiation, and
an arsenal of drugs, Ann’s disease is in remission.
Ann: “The bottom line was I was willing to do whatever it took to
live. It is an incredible experience to get a kind a death
sentence that I got."
Voice-over: And the death sentence is staggering for Americans who smoke.
Dr. Richard Carmona is the Surgeon General of the United States.
Dr. Carmona: “Smoking causes about four hundred and forty thousand deaths
per year in our country. But for every person to die there
are twenty others who have serious disease associated with smoking.”
Voice-over: The newly released Surgeon General’s report chronicles the
health effects of smoking.
Dr. Carmona: “There are many things new in this report. We have strong information
now that just about every organ in your body is affected by smoking.”
Voice-over: The list of diseases caused by smoking has been expanded to include
abdominal aortic aneurysm, cataracts, pneumonia, periodontal disease,
acute myeloid leukemia, as well as cancers of the cervix, kidney,
pancreas, and stomach.
Dr. Carmona: “Smoking remains the leading cause of preventable death in the
United States. On average, smoking shortens your life by thirteen to fourteen
years. That means you won’t get to see your grandchildren
or your children as long as you’d like."
Voice-over: Ann’s husband, David.
David: “All of the patterns I had established, all of the expectations
I had for the way our lives were gonna go were all out the window
at that moment. And so I think I was mad at everything. Me,
her, the kids. Ask them, they’ll tell you."
Jaime: “I was always trying to get her to stop before it happened.”
Voice-over: Like most children, Ann’s son Jamie has strong feelings about
his mother’s smoking and lung cancer.
Dr. Holly Middleton: “I think when children have a parent who has lung cancer there’s
a guilt feeling involved that’s a little bit deeper and a little
bit heavier than that with other children who have parents who have
cancer unrelated to any activity that they’ve had in their lives.
And what I mean by that is the children are so mad at their parents
for smoking. How could you do that to yourself because look
what you’re doing to my life. You are ruining my life because you’re
sick and you might die and then you leave me and you did that.
There’s that anger, but right on the heels of that is I shouldn’t
be feeling that."
Dr. Carmona: "It’s a terrible tragedy to lose a parent. And when you’re
young and lose that sense of stability and security in your life
— it’s terrible.”
Ann: “I think there’s a lot about cancer that’s all about fear.
Of course, I’m afraid it will come back. So I try to acknowledge
the fear and then let it go because it gets in the way of enjoying
right now. And right now I’m really fine.”
Page last updated May 27, 2004
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