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It is the truly shattering, “Oh my God” moment that many dread. Picture yourself in this situation. After many examinations and fluid tests, you sit in a room waiting for the results, and the physician, with a somber face, tells you — “Ma’am you have cancer and we are going to try all we can do to save your life.” The moment brings shivers down the spine of some and an utter sense of hopelessness and resignation to fate for others.
Lexington, N.C., resident Terri Hall has been through that situation ten times. She has had ten cancers — the majority of them squamos cell carcinoma. She has lost her larynx through surgery and has gone through radiation treatment 53 times. Hall has emerged from this undefeated and is passionate about spreading the message on the dangers of smoking and secondhand smoke to multitudes of students across North Carolina as a member of Survivors and Victims of Tobacco Empowerment (SAVE).
“If I can reach just one to keep them from doing what I did, it’s worth it,” said Hall, 48.
Born in Mt. Clemmons, MI, Hall had her first cigarette at age 14 before smoking regularly after she graduated from high school. She started off with Newport’s, switched to Virginia Slims and then Doral Menthol. For 23 years, Hall smoked and did not see any danger coming. Then in her own words:
“I had a little sore like a canker sore in the inside of my mouth around the cheek area. I told my dentist about it and he did a biopsy on it and it came back cancer. I went through 33 radiation treatments, but the whole time that I was going through radiation I was walking around with a severe sore throat — I thought I was just smoking too much, of course in my mind I thought ‘you’d smoke more, too, if you had cancer and was going through radiation.’ See that was my mind set. Later, after completing radiation I decided I best have my throat checked and I went to a Ear, Nose and Throat doctor who did another biopsy on my throat and then I received the phone call: ‘Ms. Hall we need you to come into our office and we need you to bring someone with you.’ So, I went and that is when they told me that I had a tumor on my larynx and would need to have my voice box removed.”
The doctor removed her larynx and now she has a stoma on which she inserts her lary button to be able to talk. She does not taste well and only smells something if the odor is really strong. She also does not get to eat her favorite meats — pork chops and steak — and only eats little bread to avoid it getting stuck on her throat.
Above all the things, Hall has a problem with secondhand smoke. “I hate secondhand smoke,” Hall said. “It scares me, especially after becoming a lary.” Her biggest concern is for the infants and toddlers who are around parents and siblings who smoke. “They cannot turn on a fan, roll down a window, or leave a smoke-filled room,” she said. “They have no choice. When Mom and Dad smoke, the whole family smokes. It’s sad to see a car with the window cracked and a toddler in the back seat breathing secondhand smoke.”
Hall dreams of a smoke-free state of North Carolina and hopes there will be a law making all public facilities, restaurants and park areas free of tobacco smoke. She also supports a law that would prohibit smoking in cars with child passengers, as numerous other states have passed.
When she sees people smoking, she does not pick fights with them as she understands quitting is not all that easy. “It is one of the hardest things I ever had to do ... quit,” Hall said. “But you know if someone like me had come to my school and talked to me like I do, I doubt seriously I would have ever picked up a cigarette.”
Despite everything Hall has been through, she still finds comfort in looking for a brighter tomorrow. She enjoys spending time with her 27-year-old daughter, Dana, and her grandson Jeffrey, 6.
She also has created an extended network of friends in the schools she visits across the state. Sometimes when she goes grocery shopping, she gets hugs from people whose lives she has touched. Some have decided to quit after hearing her story, while others are still trying to tell their loved ones to do the same.
When Hall wakes up every morning and faces her biggest challenge of accepting that she cannot talk without her lary button, she thinks about those people who are still smoking and nonsmokers exposed to secondhand smoke. “If you smoke please try to do the hardest thing you’ll ever have to do and that is quit. And for nonsmokers: Rally for a smoke-free America,” Hall said
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