Look Who it Was Random video

Against the Odds - Surviving Lung Cancer

3,410 views · Published 22 March 2015 · 2:15 · Indexed 25 October 2026

Channel: Lee Health · 2015 · Science & Technology

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Her doctor’s call her an anomaly - a description Melissa Crouse gladly accepts.

“I’m still here, I’m still productive. I’m still, as you can see, doing fairly well,” says Crouse. 

What you don’t see is inside her. Melissa is living with stage 4 lung cancer; has been for nine years.

She is, I would say, not the average patient, so I have to say she is an exceptional patient,” says Dr. Lowell Hart, who is on oncologist on medical staff of Lee Memorial Health System. 

Many of her doctors and her support system are in Fort Myers.

“She sort of is one of our pioneers of the new type of lung cancer patient,” says Dr. Hart. 

Melissa is among a growing number of lung cancer patients who never smoked.

“They tend to get a slightly different type of lung cancer than the heavy smokers,” says Dr. Hart. 

“I, like every one else, assumed that you can only get lung cancer if you smoked,” says Crouse. 

These non-smokers tend to have a different mechanism driving their disease. Advances in research worked to Melissa’s advantage.

“Researchers and scientists are now finding that a lot of cancer, a lot of lung cancer is driven by genetic mutations,” says Crouse. 

“These are not genes that someone inherits from their mom and dad. These are genes that drove the cancer to grow,” says Dr. Hart. “We now have ways of shutting down some of those gene pathways and there’s more things coming out all the time.”

It was here at the Regional Cancer Center that Melissa was enrolled in a clinical drug trial, something that would hopefully exploit a weakness in the cancer’s genetics and stop it from duplicating. It worked long enough to extend her life. The cancer in her lungs is gone, but it returned in her liver.

“We’ve been going back and forth on what to do next because we’ve kind of hit that wall, we’ve tried everything,” says Crouse. 

Living on the edge is a way of life for nine years now. Melissa’s battle is blazing a trail for other lung cancer patients.

“We hopefully can turn it into more of a chronic illness,” says Dr. Hart. 

Melissa is now one of only two people in the U.S. in a new clinical trial. Looking for a way to turn cancer into a life sentence.

“Don't ever, ever, ever give up hope,” says Crouse. 


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