Cover Feature Jennifer Windrum Story by Bailey Hemphill • Photos by minorwhitestudios.com
Jennifer Windrum asks
WHERE’S THE
FUNDING for lung cancer?
A
fter her m o m , Le s li e Le h r m a n , announced that she had Stage IV inoperable, incurable lung cancer in 2005, Jennifer Windrum, 41, saw her mission in life become crystal clear. “We literally have a public health epidemic on our hands and virtually no one cares. I won’t stand for it. None of us can,” she says. Windrum, a former news reporter for KMTV Channel 3, felt compelled to research more about lung cancer upon her mom’s diagnosis—but she quickly learned that the “true” lung cancer story wasn’t being told. “Most people don’t know that anyone can get lung cancer. Lung cancer is not just a smoker’s disease,” Windrum stresses, adding that her mom has never smoked a day in her life. “Eighty percent of new lung cancer cases are diagnosed in people who have never smoked or are former smokers who quit decades ago…yet it remains the least funded of the four major cancers by a long shot.” Windrum says that because the government and a majority of the medical community >> www.ReadOnlineNow.com
Windrum with Phoenix and NoMo, the Sock Monkeys Against Cancer (SMAC!). Her Living • October/November 2012
9