Terrie H.: The Former Cheerleader Who Put a Face on Smoking's Toll

Terrie H. was a high school cheerleader who competed on the cheer circuit. Her father smoked, more and more of her friends did too, and Terrie started lighting up at parties and get-togethers — it seemed like the cool thing to do. She smoked her first cigarette at 13, and in time was smoking up to two packs a day.

She eventually was smoking up to two packs a day and started feeling the effects of tobacco at age 25—a sore throat that never seemed to go away. In 2001, at the age of 40, Terrie was diagnosed with oral cancer. As she recalled, “I ha.

Cancer at 40

• At 25, she began to feel the effects: a sore throat that never really went away.
• At 40, a sore in her mouth turned out to be oral cancer. She went through grueling radiation — and kept smoking, reasoning that since the radiation was clearing the cancer, she didn't need to quit.
• The same year, she was diagnosed with throat cancer, and doctors told her they would have to remove her larynx. That was when she quit for good. Home from surgery, she picked up a cigarette, caught sight of herself in the mirror, and asked herself what she was doing. She had smoked right up to the hospital's front door on the day of her operation.

From then on, Terrie spoke through an artificial voice box inserted in her throat. Treatment also cost her her teeth and hair; one of her Tips ads showed how she got ready for the day afterwards.

What she missed

Terrie welcomed three grandchildren. The only voice her grandson ever knew was her artificial one, born as he was after her larynx was removed, and she missed being able to sing him lullabies or coo to a baby. When children asked why she talked that way, she told them it was because she used to smoke — and never to start. Her fear was that she would not live to see her grandchildren graduate or marry.

Her daughter Dana described how hard it was on the whole family, who went through every stage of the illness with her.

Her work — and her message

Terrie worked tirelessly to teach young people about tobacco's dangers and gave her time to several health and advocacy groups; she said she was busier than before her cancer. Through CDC's Tips From Former Smokers® campaign she urged young people never to start: if you never start, you never have to quit. She believed that stopping even one person from smoking would be something great. Her tip to smokers: record yourself reading a children's storybook and singing a lullaby — before smoking takes your voice.

• In May 2013, she received the Surgeon General's Medallion, one of public health's highest honors, for encouraging people to quit or never start.
• The cancer came back many times. Terrie died of smoking-related cancer in 2013, at 53. Near the end, filmed from a hospital bed, her message was simple: don't smoke — and if you do, quit, and keep trying until you succeed.
• Dana carries on her mother's work with the Tips campaign.

"I believe that for me and for literally millions of other Americans, Terrie put a face to the people killed by smoking each year in the U.S.," said Dr. Tom Frieden, CDC's director from 2009 to 2017.

Terrie's "I Wish" tip, filmed shortly before her death. CDC, Tips From Former Smokers.

Free help to quit

Sources

Based on "Terrie H.'s Story," Tips From Former Smokers®, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; rewritten in hubnx's own words. The source dates her oral cancer diagnosis to both 2000 and 2001, so only her age is given. Pictures an earlier version of this page left out were restored on 2026-09-26. The video, missing when the page was imported, is restored from the Internet Archive's copies of CDC's files (2026-09-27).