Karen Abel thinks carefully about who in her private life she tells about her lung cancer. Not because she finds it difficult to talk about her diagnosis, on the contrary. But because of the reactions. Abel reports of embarrassed silence, of insecurity – and that most of them then prefer to avoid her. “At a workshop I suddenly found myself alone,” she says. “Cancer isn’t great anyway and is already very stigmatized, but lung cancer is particularly so. You associate it with: old, smoking, deadly – and it’s your own fault.” Karen Abel is only 52, used to smoke at most occasionally and has now been living with the diagnosis of lung cancer for four years.
“At first I thought I only had a year left,” she recalls. Lung cancer is considered incurable and is usually only diagnosed when it has metastasized; the prognosis for the patients, who are on average almost 70, is poor. But Abel tested positive for what’s called a driver mutation, a genetic change that causes the cancer to grow. With just one tablet a day, the tumor can often be kept in check for years. “The cancer has become part of my life,” says Abel. One for which she wishes more visibility.