Terrie Hall’s story
Terrie was a young woman in high school when she started smoking. Her father smoked, and with more and more of her friends smoking, Terrie soon found herself lighting up in social settings. “It was the cool thing to do,” she said.
Terrie was a healthy athlete in her youth and she related a story from her early smoking years, “…being an athlete, I wasn't allowed to go into the designated smoking area where my friends hung out. So, what do you think I did? I would go in there, and I would sneak in there, and all my friends would huddle around me, and they would hide me, to keep me from being seen by the coaches and the teachers.” Terrie would later wonder whether if she’d been caught, she might have stopped smoking back then.
She was eventually smoking up to two packs a day and at the age of just 25, she started having a sore throat that never seemed to go away. In 2001, at the age of 40, Terrie was diagnosed with oral cancer.
Later that same year, Terrie was also diagnosed with throat cancer and the doctors informed her that they would need to remove her larynx.
“All I heard was, "Cancer." I didn't hear the part they were going to take something away from me…“They had cut me from one ear to the other…They had taken my voice box, and then they stapled me back together and left a hole in the middle of my throat. Well, when I opened my mouth to…(speak)…nothing came out of my mouth. Not a breath, not a syllable, not a sound. Nothing. And you know what the next thing I remember is? I had two big tears, and they came down the side of my face. And that's when it hit me, they had taken my voice box, and I could not talk…”
From then on, Terrie spoke with the help of an artificial voice box that was inserted in her throat. “This is the only voice my grandson knows,” she said. “I miss being able to sing lullabies to him”.
In total Terrie underwent 33 radiation treatments for her cancers.
Terrie continued to battle on with a strong, positive spirit, and she made a very powerful series of advertisements encouraging others to stop smoking. Terrie died September 16, 2013 from smoking-related cancer. She was 53.
As well as the long list of health benefits that start as soon as you have your last cigarette, and the huge financial savings, the earlier you quit, the more likely your children will be non-smokers.
Head and neck cancers are the 7th most commonly diagnosed in Australia. The majority of these cancers are caused by smoking (59% of oral cavity/pharynx cancers and 77% of laryngeal cancers). Other risk factors include alcohol, viruses such as HPV and family history. To learn more about head and neck cancers and access support, visit https://www.beyondfive.org.au/