A Billboard Saved Me from Dying from Lung Cancer — Before I Even Had Symptoms (Exclusive)

Denise Lee, now 63, smoked for 40 years, starting when she was 14. A year after her last cigarette, she saw a public service announcement created by Hill Holliday for the American Lung Association’s Ad Council campaign, saying that former smokers were eligible for a special lung cancer screening. Lee got the scan, which led to a lung cancer diagnosis before she even had symptoms. Below, she shares her story with PEOPLE.

I started smoking when I was 14. My first cigarette was one of my mom’s cigarettes. She never smoked in front of us — she always smoked in the bathroom, in our basement. 

One day, I just went in and got one of her cigarettes and smoked it. It was terrible. It was awful. But I viewed cigarette smoking as a weight-loss aid. I was heavy, and I figured that if I smoked, I wouldn’t eat — and if I didn’t eat, then I wouldn’t gain weight. I had huge body image issues.  

Smoking was more acceptable back then. I went to an all-girls Catholic high school, and we actually had our own smoking area that the school provided for us, believe it or not.  The only person I didn’t smoke in front of was my mom. While I was still at home before I went off to college at Howard University, I developed a really bad cough, and my mother did mention, ‘You need to stop smoking,’ so she knew at that point.

In college, I used it as a stress reliever.  I was away from home, and it just became a way of life at that point.

After that, it would depend on what was going on. I don’t think I ever got under a pack. As a public defender, life never was really mellow. If things got really crazy, I could go up to two packs a day easy. As soon as I would wake up, I would have a cigarette. Before I quit, I could smoke a half a pack of cigarettes before I even got out of the house.

I did try to quit multiple times, but, you know, nicotine is pretty addictive. I got the brilliant idea that, because I hated non-menthol cigarettes, I would smoke non-menthol cigarettes — and because I didn’t like them, I wouldn’t smoke them. Well, we know what happened… I became addicted to non-menthol cigarettes.

I was 54, I knew I needed to quit. Did I want to quit? No, but I knew health-wise, I needed to quit.

I was able to quit with the help of the prescription drug Chantix. I was smoking, and the best cigarette was the first cigarette of the day with coffee. On April 20, 2017, I woke up and I didn’t want a cigarette. 

A while later, I was driving and stuck in traffic on highway 880. I lived in Fremont, Calif., but worked in San Jose. I see this billboard that says that if you currently smoke or quit within the past 15 years, this test could save your life. I passed it probably about six times more, and I said, you know, I gotta talk to my doctor about that. 

I went up on the website savedbythescan.org and took the quick quiz. It told me that I qualify.  I made the appointment for the day after I got back from a six-week vacation. It was a CT scan, real easy, and took maybe less than two minutes.

Less than 24 hours later, I got a call from a pulmonologist saying that they needed to see me ASAP. They told me that they found a mass in my upper left lobe. They suspected that it was lung cancer.  I will never forget that conversation. I was walking with a friend, and my primary care physician physician called me. I just kept saying, ‘I’m going to die.’ My friend just took the phone and she talked to my primary care physician, because I just couldn’t. She got all of the information.

After several tests, they took a biopsy. It came back cancerous. I had no symptoms. 

I had my surgery on March 7, 2018, almost a year after I quit smoking. It was an aggressive surgery because the tumor was pretty big. They took the whole upper left lobe and 18 lymph nodes to make sure it hadn’t spread. Fortunately, it hadn’t. Afterward, I did four rounds of chemotherapy and qualified for a clinical trial of an immunotherapy drug, which was taken monthly for a year.

I haven’t had a recurrence and it’s been eight years.

The advantage of them finding it so early is that I had a lot more treatment options. I was able to have surgery, chemotherapy, qualify for a clinical trial. One of the advantages of early detection is that the goal of treatment becomes a cure as opposed to palliative. And I had so many treatment options.

I’m now 63. I’m great, still traveling, exercising, I’m working with other people diagnosed with lung cancer. I like being able to tell my story because if even if it helps one person then that’s worth it to me.

If you qualify, get it, please get it. It saved my life. If I had a page in Wikipedia, “Early Detection Saves Lives,” my picture would be right there.

For more about Hill Holliday’s people, work, and culture, visit https://people.com/a-billboard-saved-me-from-dying-from-lung-cancer-11680325