Using poetry to motivate lung cancer patients (video)

November is Lung Cancer Awareness Month and many are working to raise awareness or inspire those living with the disease.

“Lung cancer is the number one cancer killer of men and women in the United States,” said Deb Brown, president and CEO of the American Lung Association of the Mid-Atlantic.

According to Brown anyone can get lung cancer, “You don’t have to be a smoker or you don’t have to be someone exposed to second hand smoke. There is a variety of risk factors associated with that. In fact two-thirds of people diagnosed with lung cancer have never smoked or have quit smoking,” Brown said.

The best way to prevent lung cancer is to never start smoking Brown added.

Delaware State alumnus Venard Cabbler is determined to inspire others after lung cancer hit too close to home. It’s through his book, Messages From a Messenger.

“I started writing inspirational poetry back in 2010, my mom had passed away from lung cancer,” Cabbler said. “I started writing a poem ‘Know Who You Are’ because [my mom] would always say, ‘Son, I don’t worry about you because you know who you are.'”

Cabbler’s poems, now serve as motivation to those not only suffering from cancer but people in need of a little direction too.

“A young lady on my job she read my poems and she enrolled back in school. Another lady is teaching [ministry] from my book,” Cabbler said.

Meanwhile, every day there’s something new happening in the lung cancer field. Over the past five years the American Lung Association has spent $9 million on research to hopefully one day find a cure.

“The earlier we can get people to be diagnosed with lung cancer the better we can treat it and that translates to a longer survivor period. Every two and half minutes a woman or man in the United States gets told that they have lung cancer and every five minutes someone dies from lung cancer,” Brown said.

To be a part of the movement to help raise awareness about lung cancer, you can join Delawareans in Rehoboth Beach for the Lung Force Walk on November 12th.