Joe Soptic's wife, Ilyana, died in 2006, less than a month after her diagnosis with late-stage lung cancer.

Ilyana Soptic was not alone in her circumstances. Almost 200,000 Americans were diagnosed with lung cancer in 2006. Many died within a year; fewer than 30,000 are alive today.

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In coming days, after NFL teams clean up and store their pink cleats for another year, politicians return their ribbons to desk drawers, and the flood of breast cancer stories subsides, another cancer will have its month in the sun: lung cancer. Only it won't be sunshine that will prevail,...

I came home Monday night, took one look at my wife, and knew something was desperately wrong.

"Honey, what is it?" I asked, half inquiring, half -- by way of my sheepish intonation -- signaling my acceptance of the blame for whatever was awry in her life.

"The...

Like growing numbers of Americans, I am disgusted by what presidential historian Douglas Brinkley has accurately but politely described as the "hyper-partisanship" of today's political discourse.

We are a house badly divided. Worse yet, we're like a family where the family members can't even have a civil dinner...

This article will take a little long to unfold, but, hey, it's winter. What else do you have to do?

February 2nd is Groundhog Day -- the appendix of national holidays. No one will scurry to send last-minute holiday cards, no traditional greetings will be exchanged, turkeys can sleep in,...

On Tuesday, President Barack Obama will deliver his second official State of the Union Address to Congress, extending a tradition that dates back to George Washington.

It is fitting that the address comes just about a week before Groundhog Day, as it has become the political equivalent -- ceremonial,...

By the time you finish this post, two more Americans will receive the life-rending diagnosis of lung cancer. Sadly, given the current state of lung cancer research, diagnosis and treatment, they -- like most of the 225,000 other Americans who will receive a lung cancer diagnosis in 2010 -- are...

As I begin this post, my wife and I have just dropped off our third and youngest child for his freshman year of college, and we are beginning the long trip home -- or to wherever it is we are headed.

Leaving your youngest child at college is a hugely...

Benjamin Franklin famously remarked that only two things are inevitable: death and taxes. In this era of superior diagnostics, timely treatment, miracle drugs, and breathtaking medical innovation, he might have been tempted to add a third item to the list -- serious long-term illness.

Almost every family experiences one:...

I'm not going to lie to you. Like most consultants, I spend most of my unbillable time conjuring up T.V. pilots. I would like to sell a T.V. show. Even more than that, I would like to deliver an Emmy speech. Not the daytime Emmys. The real ones.

So here's...