OKLAHOMA CITY, OK | March 17, 2021
Local residents Sharon Lyons, Mandi Pike and Ashley Stringer all have something in common; they were diagnosed with and survived lung cancer and are now taking action for change. Today, March 17, they will meet with members of Congress to raise awareness about the disease and demand action.
Through the American Lung Association’s LUNG FORCE initiative, Lyons, Pike and Stringer will join others personally affected by lung cancer to advocate for $46.1 billion in funding at the National Institutes of Health, $10 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and to ensure that everyone has access to affordable, adequate and accessible healthcare.
Jan. 26, 2021Reprints Mandi Pike near her home in Edmond, Okla. Pike, a never-smoker, was diagnosed with lung cancer in November 2019.
Nick Oxford for STAT
Sharon Begley died of complications of lung cancer on Jan. 16, just five days after completing this article. She was a never-smoker.
Breast cancer wouldn’t have surprised her; being among the 1 in 8 women who develop it over their lifetime isn’t statistically improbable. Neither would have colorectal cancer; knowing the risk, Mandi Pike “definitely” planned to have colonoscopies as she grew older.
But when a PET scan in November 2019 revealed that Pike, a 33-year-old oil trader, wife, and mother of two in Edmond, Okla., had lung cancer she had been coughing and was initially misdiagnosed with pneumonia her first reaction was, “but I never smoked,” she said. “It all seemed so surreal.”