My mom died of lung cancer almost ten years ago and she never smoked. Went into the hospital with pneumonia and found out she had lung cancer and she died five weeks later.
It is the cruelest of diseases. Things happen so fast. My friend Cathy was diagnosed in July, and lived until February. She, too, was just experiencing some shortness of breath; she thought it was getting re-acclimated to WI after spending some time in the mountains of CO. She actually lived three months more than they had predicted, but living with a death sentence is just horrible, no matter how you look at it.
I'm sorry for your loss, too.
"My mom died of lung cancer almost ten years ago and she never smoked."
My great-great grandma lived to be 99 years, 11 months and 15 days old. She smoked a great big pipe every day. If she hadn't smoked, she woould have lived to be 100. :)