Heather's Story
(told in the winter of 2003)
My
name is Heather Crowe. I’m 58 years old, and I’m dying from lung
cancer caused by second-hand smoke in the work-place.
I
was a waitress for over 40 years.
I
worked in the hospitality industry because it let me earn a decent
living for myself and my daughter. I worked long hours, sometimes
more than 60 hours every week. The air was blue with smoke where I
worked, but until recently nobody did or said anything about the
smoke in our workplaces.
Until last year, I had no idea that second hand smoke was
dangerous. People would say, ‘do you mind if I smoke?’ and I said,
‘I really don’t care.’ I didn’t have any idea that the smoke in
the restaurants could do me harm. I just wasn’t protected. I just
wasn’t told.
My
cancer was diagnosed last year. My health had usually been good,
but last spring I noticed some lumps on my neck that didn’t go
away. Even though I wasn’t feeling sick, my daughter encouraged me
to visit the doctor. My doctor measured the lumps and sent me for
some x-rays and tests. When she told me that results showed a
cancerous tumour on my lung that was as big as my hand, I had
trouble believing it. “Are you sure it’s not tuberculosis?” I
asked. “I’ve never smoked a day in my life.”
When she was a university student, my doctor had worked with in
the same restaurant as me. She remembered how much smoke there was
in that restaurant, and told me that she thought my lung cancer
might be from second hand smoke.
It
took many more weeks before they finished the tests and the
specialists told me that my cancer was inoperable, and that they
identified it as caused by second-hand cigarette smoke.
When I learned this, I became exceptionally angry. I thought I had
to put my anger and my stress into something positive. I looked
for a way to prevent anyone else from getting sick this way.
Because I didn’t know I was at risk, I figured there were a lot of
other people in the hospitality industry that were working in the
smoke on a daily basis that also did not know that they might get
sick as I had done.
I
realized I wanted to increase awareness and I wanted workers in
the industry to have some protection if they do happen to get
sick. Waiters and waitresses do not have second-class lungs and
there is no reason why we should continue to have second-class
protection for our health. It’s time legislation took over.
The
first thing I did was to hire a lawyer to help me make a claim
with the Workers Compensation Board. I figured by going forward
with Workers Compensation claim it would help give other workers
financial support as well as helping change the way workers in the
hospitality sector are treated. Then I began to ask for letters to
support my claim. I got some letters from my doctor, from the
politicians, like the mayor and former mayor, and the medical
officer of health for Ottawa, and from some Members of Parliament
and councillors.
To
my surprise, the Board accepted my claim within 8 weeks. I learned
that mine was the first claim accepted for illness caused by
second hand smoke in restaurants.
On
the day after I had a biopsy of my lung, one of my regular clients
asked me why I was favouring my left arm. I told him I had lung
cancer from second-hand smoke. He worked at Health Canada and
asked me if they could use me in an advertisement about second
hand smoke. This would help people learn about the need to protect
workers, and I said yes.
By
coincidence, the advertisement started the same day that I learned
that my claim for compensation had been accepted. My phone began
ringing off the hook, there were so many newspapers and television
stations interested in the claim.
Since then I have been across Canada talking to politicians, to
schools and to communities about the need to protect workers from
smoke. I think I help because I put a face to cancer. There are
lots of statistics out there, but I am a person, and I think that
helps people understand that this is a real problem. I just want
people to become a little more aware of what second hand smoke can
do.
I
am hoping that the politicians will work at a solution and that we
should get smoke-free workplaces right across Canada. I don’t
expect it all to be done in a very short time, I’m just hoping
that they consider this is a very dangerous chemical, and that all
workers should be equally protected.
Some people say ‘well, if you don’t like the smoke you don’t have
to work there,’ to which my reply is ‘if other people have
protection in the workplace then why not us? ‘ All I’m asking for
is equal rights. We should not be disposable workers.
I’m
not asking the smokers to give up smoking, I’m asking them to step
outside when they smoke, to protect all workers.
There are four stages of cancer and that I am at the third stage.
That means that there is no way I will be able to get well. I have
had five big and five small rounds of chemo-therapy and thirty
radiation treatments. The radiation was supposed to kill the
actual cancer cells and the chemo-therapy was supposed to shrink
the tumour. That may give me two or three years if I go into
remission, but eventually the cancer will come back and it will be
terminal.
It
helps me to do this work. At least I’m out there trying to do
something, trying to make a difference. It’s too late for me, but
it doesn’t mean that I have to curl up in a ball and let it go,
you know? It’s not too late for future generations.
My
goal is to be the last person to die from second hand smoke.
