Bay Area woman with stage 4 lung cancer continues to beat the odds
The Brief
A Bay Area woman given just two years to live after being diagnosed with lung cancer has lived for eight.
Statistics show she is part of a group of young never-smoking Asian American women who are being diagnosed with lung cancer at a high rate.
Lung cancer is considered the leading cause of death in the AAPI community.
SANTA CLARA COUNTY, Calif. - Donna Terry was only 39 years old when she was diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer.
She was a nurse, a mother of two, and she had never smoked. She wanted to share her story to raise awareness.
At the time, she did not think she had much time left. She was given six months to two years to live.
She wanted to spend as much time as she could with her husband, and her children, who she calls "her reasons."
But she also wanted to raise awareness.
She has traveled to Capitol Hill and to lawmakers with the same message, saying, "Look, it is happening to people who have never smoked. It is happening to young people who don't have any, you know, signs or symptoms or really any clinical history."
By the numbers
According to a study published by the National Library of Medicine, even though lung cancer is decreasing across the board, 20% of lung cancer cases in the United States happen in never-smokers. Among Asian American women - more than 50% never smoked. And in Chinese American and Indian American women never-smokers, that figure is 80 to 90%. No one knows why.
Terry knows she has lived for years on time that was never promised to her. It has not been easy. She had 17 tumors in her brain and two hundred tumors in her lungs and has made more than 150 chemotherapy treatments in addition to radiation and oral chemo.
She has lost her hair, her nails, her memory, and she says, "my personality" and "my patience."
But she has also been able to watch her kids grow up. Her son is now 13 and her daughter is 10. She made videos for milestones she thought she would miss, but they have never watched them.
Today, eight years later her reasons for sitting down and telling her story are the same ones that made her do it back in 2017. She wants to help people and help improve the odds.
She says every day now she knows time is a gift and her message to everyone is to "go out and celebrate every moment you get."
Our full conversation with Donna Terry can be found on our Second Look podcast, which is now streaming on the KTVU profile, which can be found everywhere you get your podcasts.
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