Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
- Kerri Robbins shares her cancer story to raise awareness about radon risks.
- Robbins was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, despite never smoking.
- Experts emphasize testing homes for radon due to its link to lung cancer.
SALT LAKE CITY — A woman is sharing her cancer story in hopes others don't wind up like her, as she draws attention to the radon risk that she says could exist in many Utah homes.
Kerri Robbins said she was living a relatively healthy life when she had an unexpected health episode in 2022. She began coughing and choking during a home workout and looked in the mirror and suddenly didn't know why she was there.
"I knew I'd been walking because I had my walking clothes on," Robbins said.
She said her husband, who had helped take care of his mother with dementia, observed some concerning signs.
"He said for about 20 minutes I wandered around downstairs," Robbins said. "I kept wondering if it was Friday, so he knew immediately something was going on."
Family members called paramedics, who suggested a more detailed look into her health.
"One of the MRIs they did found a brain tumor," Robbins said. "I thought they were crazy because I just was not a sickly person."
Further testing identified a second small brain tumor, but an even more shocking diagnosis came in August 2022 when doctors told her she had Stage 4 lung cancer.
Robbins had never smoked in her life.
"You could have knocked me over with a feather," she said. "I think you're stunned. I don't even know what I was processing; it was so unbelievable."
Robbins said an oncologist suggested environmental factors could have caused the cancer.
"He said the word, 'radon' — it didn't mean anything to me," Robbins said. "And he goes, 'Have you tested your home for radon?' And I just didn't know I needed to do that."
Earlier this month, more than three years after her unexpected cancer diagnosis, Robbins joined doctors from Utah Cancer Specialists and field experts from Utah Radon Services in calling for people to have their homes tested for radon, noting what workers found inside her house was another shocking discovery.
"The levels in our home were like I was smoking over three packs of cigarettes a day," Robbins said.
Dr. James Shortridge, a medical oncologist with Utah Cancer Specialists, characterized radon gas as a known risk factor that contributes to non-smoking lung cancer.
"I think our data clearly shows there is an associated risk of radon and non-small cell lung cancer, or non-smoking related lung cancers," Shortridge said. "The risk of developing those mutations is higher if we have certain environmental exposures like radon, so anything that we can do that could potentially mitigate the risk of having cytotoxic damage to our cells could reduce the risk of having cancer someday."
T.J. Mellars, a Utah Radon Services general manager, said radon gas comes from decaying uranium in the soil and is found in varying degrees around the state of Utah.
"In Utah, about 50% of homes have higher radon levels than what the World Health Organization recommends," Mellars said. "There is no county in Utah that is considered to have 'safe' levels all around."
Mellars said areas such as Wasatch County, Summit County and sections of South Jordan have historically been known to be home to higher levels of radon, but the only way to know what the radon levels are inside a home is to have the house tested.
"It has to do with the soil that it sits on," Mellars said. "It has to do with air pressure differentials between the house and the soil. My neighbor's house could have low radon, and my house could have very high radon."
Mellars said his organization offers free testing.
He said mitigation work on average costs less than $2,000 for the typical home, and many homes don't need that type of work done.
"We're dealing with installing a pipe that runs from the lowest level of the home, where we've drilled a hole," Mellars explained. "It runs above the roof line of the home, and in that pipe, we install an in-line fan, and it works like a vacuum. It's called sub-slab depressurization, where we vacuum soil gases and air flow from underneath the foundation footprint of that home, and then those soil gases that we're vacuuming from beneath the home will be vented above the home's roofline."
Robbins, who has undergone radiation treatments and oral chemotherapy, said she wanted to share her story in hopes others will be motivated to test for radon.
"This is my new reality," Robbins said. "And radon advocacy is No. 1 on my mind. I don't want anybody else to have to go through what I've been through."
