Carole Buck Joins "Siteman Smokeout For Life"

November 5, 2006, ST. LOUIS - Broadcaster Jack Buck wrote these words after lung cancer surgery in 2001:

"…there was a price to be paid
For the joy cigarettes were giving.
Emphysema, heart attack,
cancer and stroke
Man, this is really living."

It''s part of a poem called "Wake Up!" Buck penned in an effort to spread the word that cigarette smoking is addictive and can be lethal. Even after quitting over a decade earlier, years of cigarette smoking helped contribute to Buck''s death at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in June 2002.

Buck''s message about cigarettes is why Jack''s wife Carole is partnering with Barnes-Jewish''s Siteman Cancer Center in their annual "Siteman Smokeout for Life.

"I did it," says Mrs. Buck, a former smoker who quit herself. "And we need to get the message to others they need to quit."

Mrs. Buck will be on hand for the 2006 Smokeout on Nov. 16 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Barnard Health and Cancer Information Center, located on the first floor of the Center for Advanced Medicine. As part of the nationwide Great American Smokeout, Siteman will offer information on the dangers of smoking and the benefits of quitting, a free pulmonary function test and oxygen saturation screening, information about smoking cessation classes and an "Ask the Doctor" with lung cancer experts.

And when you ask doctors about lung cancer – a killer of more people than breast, colon and prostate cancers combined – topic A is cigarette smoking.

"If we were to write reasons of why lung cancer was happening up on a chalkboard, smoking would take up the whole thing and the other factors would be in tiny type," says G. Alec Patterson, MD, chief of cardiothoracic surgery at Barnes-Jewish Hospital and Washington University School of Medicine.

Over 90 percent of lung cancer caused by cigarette smoking, and efforts to get people to quit like the Great American Smokeout go a long way in helping people "kick the habit."

"If you are smoking, you need to quit," says Dr. Patterson. "If you don''t want to stop smoking, consider doing it for your sons, daughters and grandchildren because we know that smoking shortens lives."

While Jack Buck suffered from several illnesses, lung cancer helped cut Buck''s life short at 77 years old. His poem still hangs framed outside Patterson''s office in Washington University''s cardiothoracic surgery suite with closing words of:

"Have you had enough?
Do you need one more puff?
Wake Up!
You know the answer."

To read the entire "Wake Up!" poem, visit www.siteman.wustl.edu. In addition to Mrs. Buck, Mike Claiborne and McGraw Milhaven of KTRS Radio will be on hand as well.

For more information about the "Siteman Smokeout for Life" or information about joining a smoking cessation class at the Siteman Cancer Center, call 800-600-3606.