It was a long time ago, and she was a heavy smoker. The point with my geologist story and other cases I know of, is when you do get sick, whether it's even remotely related to smoking or not, you get issues with respiration, immune defense and physical endurance if you smoke. So it doesn't really matter if my friend had his cancer directly from his smoking or not, he still died from not being able to breathe at night due to smoking. (he didn't have lung cancer).