Kathryn Joosten
You may recognize Emmy award-winning actress
Kathryn Joosten from her role as Mrs. McClusky
on ABC’s Desperate Housewives, or from her role
as Mrs. Landingham on NBC’s West Wing. Maybe
you’ve seen her on ABC’s My Name is Earl, where
her character was “kidnapped” by the lead character,
Earl, so he could help her quit smoking. What you
may not know about Ms. Joosten, though, is that
she is a 5-year survivor of small cell lung cancer.
Ms. Joosten wants people to know that she was
incredibly lucky, and that this was primarily due to the
fact that she had the right physician at the right time.
She encourages everyone – especially cancer patients
– to be partners with their doctors in their own care.
She also highly recommends getting treated at a
major cancer center if you are diagnosed. “People
can become paralyzed by their acceptance of disease
– you just can’t do that,” said Ms. Joosten. “You have
to become proactive – research your condition and
treatment recommendations and find the best place
to receive the treatment. Being treated at a trauma
center or general hospital is not the same as being
treated at a cancer center.”
Ms. Joosten decided to get involved in lung
cancer advocacy with the National Lung Cancer Partnership because she wanted to make a
contribution to the cause, and she wants people
to know that research is the key to making strides
against the disease.
“There’s not going to be a
parting of the waters or a tap on someone’s shoulder
from God to cure this disease,” said Ms. Joosten.
“Wonderful advances have been made in breast and
reproductive cancers – we need to apply this same
kind of research to lung cancer. We need to find out
a lot more about the etiology and treatments for this
disease. We also need to understand why there are
such striking differences in this disease between
women and men, because that knowledge may lead
to better treatments for both sexes.”
