“I’ve smoked cigarettes since I was a teenager – I quit when I was diagnosed with lung cancer at 34.”
Everyone knows that smoking is bad for your health, and many people will have started the new year with a vow to quit. But quitting isn’t always easy, especially when it’s a habit cultivated for years or even decades – and sometimes it takes a terrifying fear of health to put things in perspective and find the incentive to quit smoking to give up forever.
That’s what happened to Aoife Lyttle, who smoked since she was a teenager. Although she’d tried on many occasions to quit smoking but never been successful “for more than a week,” it didn’t hit her until she started experiencing chest pains, and an X-ray showed a mass in her lungs she made the decision never to smoke again. To her horror, she was diagnosed with lung cancer.
“In August 2021, I started having chest and back pains, and the only relief I got was pressing on them and coughing,” she says. “I thought I had pulled a muscle somehow and my husband treated me with Deep Heat. But when he put it on my neck it felt sore and I could feel a lump when I touched it – then I felt a second lump the next day.
“So I called my GP practice and the doctor asked me to do a Covid-19 test. The results were negative but I was then prescribed an antibiotic and told to call back if I continued to have the same symptoms, which I did. So I called again and the doctor brought me in for a blood draw. Then, a few days later, the results came back with a marker for infection. So it was decided that I should be sent for x-rays.
“On August 16, 2021, my life changed completely – after smoking for about 20 years, I smoked a cigarette at 4:40 p.m. and then went to the hospital for an X-ray – it was the last cigarette I ever had.”
After the scan, the radiologist asked her to wait outside for a few moments before calling her back to speak to a doctor. At that point, the process of figuring out exactly what was wrong began.
“I told the radiologist I didn’t know when my last X-ray was, and when she asked me to sit down for a moment, I knew something was wrong,” says the 35-year-old. “Then when I was called back I was told I had an abnormality in my lungs. I started crying and asked if it was lung cancer. They said they couldn’t tell yet and I was sent to the (emergency) department where another doctor told me I needed to be admitted for the night so I could have a CT scan the next morning.
“I didn’t want to stay but in the end I decided I should and was taken to the acute care unit. My husband Daniel sat outside in the car with the kids waiting for news and they were just as scared as I was. And after that.” Scan the next day, the nurse told me to call my husband – I knew then it wouldn’t be good news.
“Waiting for him at the hospital seemed like ages and when he arrived we were put into a room and told I have two tumors on my right lung. What happened after that was blurry and Daniel asked questions but I honestly can’t remember what they were. After leaving the hospital, I called my family. I cried when I spoke to my dad (her mom died in 2009) and he couldn’t speak as we lost my grandma to pneumonia 20 years ago but she had lung cancer so it was really raw.”
Over the weeks, the mother-of-four (aged eight to 16) underwent a series of other tests, including a pet scan, a biopsy and breath tests. Then, on September 22, 2021, she was examined by a respiratory doctor who diagnosed her with stage 3b lung cancer, with a 5cm tumor in her right lung and a 9cm tumor in her lymph nodes.
“After the official diagnosis, I went to Galway to be mapped for radiation, but the tumors were too big so I had to have chemotherapy first,” she says. “I started the first of my six sessions in October and after the first four the tumors had shrunk enough for radiation therapy which I started just after Christmas 2021.
“I then had my last two chemo sessions. But I had to be admitted twice during treatment because I had tachycardia (when the heart rate is over 100 beats per minute), which the doctors attributed to a combination of fear, the (effects of) the treatment, and the hospitalization. So I got (and still take) a beta blocker to keep my heart rate steady.
“The radiation was very hard as it burned my back and I couldn’t swallow properly for a while. But by August of this year I was finally in remission. They couldn’t see any active cancer and I’ve had good scans every time since. They’re still watching a lymph node (tumor) continue to shrink and luckily I’m feeling fine now and trying to go back to living a normal life around hospital appointments.
“Obviously I’m still nervous about the future and a replay – every time it’s time for a scan it feels very scary. But while it can be difficult, I try to think positively all the time.”
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Aoife Lyttle is now focused on creating memories and living life to the fullest. Photo: James Connolly
Aoife, who works as a childcare worker and runs her own daycare center in the village of Sligo, where they moved to five years ago (she is originally from Cavan), says that although she is doing very well at the moment, she is very scared of cancer has return.
But she is making the best of life and living each day to the fullest and would encourage anyone experiencing any worrisome symptoms to make an appointment with their doctor immediately.
“I started immunotherapy in April 2022 and will continue until April 2023 unless things change,” she says. “But my biggest fear is that the cancer will come back. I try to collect as many memories as possible because life is just too short and you never know what’s around the next corner. So last year we went on holiday to Spain. I love dolphins and managed to take a picture with one. Then we’re going to Disneyland in early 2023.
“The best advice I could give people is that any change in your body, no matter how small, should be checked out. My body warned me and without it I would not have gone to the doctor and my story could have been very different. It’s hard to believe when you get a diagnosis like that, but being here (with) my family was worth the fight.”
Liz Yeats, CEO of the Marie Keating Foundation, agrees, saying early diagnosis is so important when it comes to cancer — something she’s learned firsthand herself. “Fantastic advances have been made in cancer treatments that can be life-saving for patients. But the earlier the cancer is detected, the better the chances of a positive result,” she says.
“I can attest to this myself as a breast cancer patient as I went straight to my GP when I found a lump in my right breast. And while I was shocked to hear that my cancer had spread to my lymph nodes, which meant I had to undergo a mastectomy, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, my oncologist was able to assure me from day one that I was fine would go.
“So I’m here to share my story, thanks to the amazing medication she prescribed and the fantastic care I received – but also because I was diagnosed with cancer at an early age.”
About lung cancer
- Lung cancer is one of the most common types of cancer, affecting both men and women.
- It is the fourth most common cancer in Ireland after prostate, breast and colon cancer.
- Around 2,690 people are diagnosed with lung cancer in Germany every year.
- In Ireland, more people die from lung cancer than from any other cancer.
- The incidence of lung cancer is currently declining in men but increasing in women.
- Less than 1 percent of all new cases occur before age 40, and most cases are diagnosed after age 50.
- 90 percent of lung cancer cases can be traced back to cigarette smoke, so the most important preventive measure is to be a non-smoker or to quit smoking. However, lung cancer can also occur in non-smokers.
Symptoms of Lung Cancer:
- difficulty breathing
- A cough that doesn’t go away or a change in a long-lasting cough
- Repeated chest infections that do not go away even after antibiotics
- Feeling more tired than usual
- A hoarse voice
- Cough up blood-stained phlegm
- Chest pain, especially when coughing or breathing in
- loss of appetite/weight loss
- swelling around face and neck
- difficulties swallowing
For more information visit mariekeating.ie
https://www.independent.ie/life/health-wellbeing/health-features/ive-been-smoking-cigarettes-since-i-was-a-teenager-i-stopped-when-i-was-diagnosed-with-lung-cancer-at-34-42317453.html “I’ve smoked cigarettes since I was a teenager – I quit when I was diagnosed with lung cancer at 34.”