Joann Behm: Lifetime Smoker Encourages Others To Quit
While flipping through the newspaper one day, Joann Behm saw a story about a clinical trial to test a new way of screening lung cancer in people at high risk for the disease being conducted at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
Making the call to enroll was a no-brainer for her. She had been smoking cigarettes since she was 14.
“I saw the clinical trial as a potential benefit to me. They were simply performing scans to look for early warning signs of lung cancer. If I didn’t want to proceed, I didn’t have to. Once I met the treatment team, I felt very confident and realized that if I had lung cancer this would help me find it sooner,” says Behm.
Still a smoker then, Behm—along with about 130 other heavy smokers over 50 who had smoked at least one pack of cigarettes per day for 20 years—agreed to participate in the trial. Participants completed a questionnaire about their smoking habits and medical history then underwent annual low-dose computed tomography (CT) scan for five years to screen for signs of lung cancer. The goal of the study was to determine if lung cancer screening could be done effectively among a high-risk population living in a geographic area with rates of histoplasmosis is three times higher than the national average. Histoplasmosis causes benign lung nodules that can look like lung cancer.
Within months, Behm was diagnosed with lung cancer. UC Health surgeons removed the upper left lobe of her lung. Fortunately, the cancer was caught so early that no additional therapy was needed.
“I knew the day before surgery that I would have one last cigarette and never smoke again,” recalls Behm. “I was very fortunate to find the cancer early as well as be able to quit so easily. I know it’s not like that for many people who try to quit smoking.”
She says her son—also a smoker—became a true anti-smoking convert after her diagnosis.
Now they both encourage everyone they know to snuff the smoking habit for good or avoid picking up the habit at all.
“I’m able to enjoy my life to the fullest,” says Behm, now 79.
Now she attends water aerobics classes three times a week and is an active volunteer with the Salvation Army’s Rehabilitation Center in Norwood.
UC Health’s multidisciplinary thoracic cancer team—made up of pulmonologists, radiologists, medical oncologists, radiation oncologists, pathologists, gastroenterologists, respiratory therapists, experienced oncology nurses and fellowship-trained surgeons—specializes in treating the entire range of cancers affecting the chest cavity. UC Health’s thoracic surgery team is the only one in the Tristate offering rib-sparing video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery (VATS ) procedures. The technique requires only a few small incisions in the abdomen and chest to insert the minimally invasive tools used to operate.