No time like the present to get your lungs screened

Shannon Woitalla walked into the emergency room due to pain in her side but came out with a much graver diagnosis than anything she could have imagined.

At age 50, Woitalla had stage four lung cancer and was given a matter of weeks to live.

“I will never forget the day. Minutes after she received the prognosis, she called me. I was at work, and she said, ‘I don’t even have time to do anything’” said Shellie Smitley, Woitalla’s sister.

Woitalla received her diagnosis in November of 2022 and passed away in February of 2023. She was unable to leave her home for most of those weeks and was put on oxygen as the cancer took its toll on her body.

“My sister was a hard worker who was very funny, and she could take even difficult things that happen in life and find the humor in it. She was very, very skilled at playing the guitar, singing and writing jingles, and that was something that she loved to do. She also was a very accepting person,” Smitley said when thinking about her sister.

According to the American Cancer Society, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death for both men and women in the United States. Smoking tobacco causes about 20% of all cancers, not just lung cancer, and causes 30% of all cancer deaths in the United States. As of today, tobacco use is the leading preventable cause of death.

Smitley and Woitalla both smoked cigarettes since they were teenagers. Depending on what was happening in their lives, they would smoke an upwards of a pack a day. Smitley had quit smoking years prior to Woitalla’s diagnosis, while Woitalla continued to smoke.

They were both aware of the negative impacts of smoking on their bodies, especially the increased risk for cancer. However, in their eyes, cancer was a process in which you were diagnosed, you received long term treatment and had time to do the things that you wanted to do before you either recovered or passed away.

“She didn’t have time to tie up loose ends. She had to accept that her life was over, that she was dying, and there was basically nothing she could do to change that,” Smitley said about her sister’s health decline and how it impacted her view on cancer.

 Lung cancer screenings were not something that was on Shellie’s radar until after her sister’s diagnosis and she is not alone in this. According to the 2022 ‘State of Lung Cancer’ report, only 5.8% of eligible Americans have been screened for lung cancer, with some states with screening rates as low as 1%. Georgia ranks 29^th among all states. Lung cancer screening is key for higher chances of survival and the reason for so many lung cancer deaths is due to low screening rates.

Since then, Smitley has made it a priority to be screened for lung cancer and urged other family members and friends to get screened, especially if they smoked.

“I think it’s extremely important for smokers or ex-smokers to get lung cancer screenings because lung cancer doesn’t give you a heads up.”

Wellstar MCG Health and the Georgia Cancer Center have many resources for lung cancer available, including lung screenings. If you would like more information about lung cancer, please visit our website here to learn about your screening and treatment options.

If you or someone you know is struggling with quitting tobacco, our tobacco cessation program is here to help.

You can email them at stoptobacco@augusta.edu or call them at 706-721-0456. You can also learn more about Smitley’s journey with quitting tobacco here.