Bogusia's story
“I wasn’t smoking, I wasn’t vaping, and I got lung cancer. Anyone with lungs can get lung cancer."
Bogusia Nawara, 42, is from Poland and has been living in Tang, near Athlone, Westmeath for the last 5 years, living in Ireland for a total of 17 years. She is a mum to a four-year-old son and lives with stage 4 lung cancer.
Bogusia, a non-smoker, often ran and practiced yoga, and generally felt she was fit and healthy. Then she started getting chest infections that kept coming back.
She went to her GP for each infection and was given steroids, but they didn’t help. Bogusia also became increasingly tired.
“It was an extreme tired. You wake up in the morning and feel like you didn’t sleep,”
Bogusia was referred for an X-ray, and the doctors saw something on the scan, which referred her to further tests, CTs, MRIs, and a bronchoscopy, a test that looks directly at your airways and lungs. She was diagnosed in June 2025 at 41 with stage four lung cancer, that spread to distant regions on body, including her hip bone. Specifically, she has stage 4 ROS1 positive non-small cell lung cancer (adenocarcinoma) with bone metastases.
“When I heard the news, it turned the world upside down. It was something I wasn’t expecting at all. It was a shock to the system, shock to my family. I thought I was healthy and fit in general. This diagnosis came completely out of the blue and turned everything upside down for me and my family.
“We have a little boy, we had bought a house and started doing the refurbishments. Not too long later I was diagnosed. It was unexpected to have something happen in such a happy moment.”
After her diagnosis, she was sent for a PET scan. With the diagnosis confirmed as a mutation, ROS-1, a rare type of lung cancer, she started targeted therapy treatment. In July 2026, she started standard chemotherapy, which she is still undergoing.
“I have better and worse days,” Bogusia says. “I was pretty active before and now I don’t have as much strength in me. You have to remember about certain things, you can’t overload yourself, you have to mind yourself. You can’t function as you did before.”
She initially didn’t have many side effects while taking the targeted therapy. During treatment, Bogusia had another scan, due to some changes in her breathing. The targeted therapy wasn’t working as well anymore as the cancer cells became resilient to the treatment. She is seeking further therapies in chemotherapy, or other clinical trials that may be offered abroad.
“The treatments can cure cancer, but they won’t cure this stage that I’m on. The idea is to extend my life for as long as possible. I know that at some point this treatment will become resilient, and I’ll have to go to different treatment and different options.”
Bogusia is sharing her story to encourage early prevention of cancer, especially lung cancer.
“It’s important to keep an eye on what’s going on inside your body. If cancer is detected early, you have more treatment options and a better chance of a cure."
“Lung cancer is a quiet killer,” she adds. “I wasn’t smoking, I wasn’t vaping, and I got lung cancer. Its unpredictable, it’s a very difficult subject with cancer cells and how they mutate. Go to your doctor.
“I am not ready to leave. I am full of life, full of love for my child, and determined. My child is still so small. This is not just about treatment. It is about time. It is about watching my child grow up, being there for the moments still to come, and not being taken away too soon.”
She also says that if she was speaking to someone that was diagnosed and facing treatment, “I would encourage them to have treatment and still plan ahead. It’s not the end of life, you can still have plans, you can still have life,” she says. “Take one day at a time.”
