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That Dessureault was able to have her baby while undergoing cancer treatment, and enjoy nearly two years of life after her diagnosis, shows that progress is being made in treating the disease, Draft said.

“It says a lot about the advances that have been made. It’s very hard to see, but it’s very important to see,” he said. “When the drugs are working, your quality of life can be tremendous. That’s what hope looks like. But the fact that Liz passed shows there’s a still a lot of work to do.”

There was no history of lung cancer for Dessureault, a Cornwall, Ont., native and former teacher. She grew up in a non-smoking household and there were no hints of a genetic predisposition to the disease.

Though there is a strong correlation between smoking and lung cancer, fully 15 per cent of those diagnosed with the disease have never smoked. Lung cancer kills on average 10,000 women a year in Canada, twice the number who die of breast cancer; more in fact, than all other female cancers combined, Wheatley-Price said.

From the beginning she accepted it and moved forward with her very positive mindset

The five-year survival rate for someone with lung cancer is just 17 per cent, compared to 85 per cent for breast cancer. Though lung cancer causes 25 per cent of cancer deaths in Canada, it receives just seven per cent of the funding, he said.

Dessureault was fortunate that her tumour had a rare genetic marker known as ROS 1, which opened up the possibility of using a targeted treatment to attack the tumour with very little side effects.

Dessureault and her family were able to visit Disney World and took a Caribbean cruise during her illness. She and Dax were Draft’s guests at a 2016 Super Bowl party in San Francisco. She sold ‘Just Breathe’ bracelets and handbags to raise awareness. From Lizzie’s Lungs was named the top health blog of 2016.

But the good news turned bad last fall.

“These past two weeks have been incredibly challenging,” she wrote in November. “Unfortunately, last Tuesday we learned that the drug that I had taken since February, Lorlatinib, was no longer working and I had progression of disease… This time to both lungs.