CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Climbing and lung cancer are not two things that usually go together. On Saturday, however, a South Carolina man in his fifth year battling stage 4 lung cancer climbed 800 steps to raise awareness for the disease.

The day started with a 6 a.m. wake up call for the Smith family to make their way to Charlotte. 

Shortly after his lung cancer diagnosis in 2016, 55-year-old Mike Smith found out he also had tumors in his brain.

He didn't think he would be marching up and down these stairs five years later, and looking good doing it.

“We’ll see, almost done,” Smith says. 

The night before the charity event was just as important as the event itself where he spent time at home with his support system, which included his family and their dog, Daisy, who he says helped save him.

“Pre-COVID, during the day I’m home working alone. It helped me to have my best friend here, and she was a bit of a lifesaver and got me going every two hours or so as a puppy... you’re walking the dog outside, so it got me mobil. It’s real important for physical activity, for not only lung cancer but cancer generally,” Smith says. 

After getting diagnosed, he needed all the support he could get.

“When I was first diagnosed with this, I didn’t know anyone that had lung cancer. I didn’t have a buddy,” Smith explains.

He says meeting people at these charity events and support groups, especially during the early stages of his diagnosis, helped the most.

“You lean on them, they’re the people that you ask these questions to because you get your time with your oncologist and your medical staff and stuff but they’re not the ones who have cancer, they’re not the ones who are experiencing it. You want someone, that human touch, that’s also going through a similar type of journey and can relate to you and what’s going on,” Smith says.

All that support from his groups, his wife, and children brought him to this moment of climbing 800 steps.

“I wasn’t sure where the end was but I knew I could do it,” Smith says.

This was put on by the American Lung Association, which Mike Smith says their research has been a miracle for him.

He takes a daily targeted therapy pill that continues to save his life without chemotherapy or radiation.