Walk 6
For this walking exercise I decided to consult the wisest man I know, my Grandpa. I figured he has experienced so much in his lifetime that he would be the best source for inspiration on my walk. He has recently been diagnosed with lung cancer and is responding well to treatment so far but of course this news in life is never great news. In the era in which he smoked it was not common knowledge that smoking was bad for you and could cause cancer. Not like it is today. So I walk in his name, in his cause, to make sure that there is never too much information about the harms of smoking. I went around to areas where I could find cigarette butts or evidence of people smoking. I think that it is in early adulthood that most people pick up the habit of smoking so this is the culture I targeted. Most of my images are taken around campus because of this. I left statistics about smoking and lung cancer in ashtrays, designated smoking areas or anywhere I found a decent amount of evidence of smokers.
These are some of the statistics in the notes I left behind. I did leave others but did not document every single card. These facts are quoted mostly from the year 2005 which is the most recent year in which these statistics were populated.
The majority of lung cancer patients are diagnosed so late that they will die within a year.
Lung cancer will kill an average of 439 people a day.
Over 60% of new lung cancer cases are never smokers or even former smokers of whom quite decades ago.
In 2005, lung cancer acounted for more deaths than breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colon cancer combined.
In 2005, 90,139 men and 69,078 women died from lung cancer.
The cost of treating lung cancer in the U.S. in 2004 was about $9.6 billion per year.
Only 16% of lung cancer is being diagnosed at its earliest and most curable stage.
