Day 34
She is the picture of youth... beauty... young motherhood. She radiates energy and feisty-ness. She is full of life and sparkle and joy... she slays thousands of people every day with her innocence and hope and inspiration. She has unwavering faith. She was 24 years old when she was diagnosed with Stage 3 cervical cancer last year. She fought. She went through treatment. She thought she had it beat this past April and she moved on with her life, never thinking twice about the cancer possibly NOT being gone. She developed a cough, a nagging back pain. October 18, she went to her doctor and received the news that she never expected to hear. Her cancer had spread to her stomach and lungs and she was now terminal. They gave her 6 months to live... and she decided to LIVE OUT LOUD. She was 25 and she was posting live video feeds, giving testimony to God and sharing her faith. She never gave up. She took her kids to Disney. She proclaimed to the world that she was living and sharing her faith. She would put on red lipstick and dance with her husband in the living room. She never stopped believing that she could experience a miracle.
Last night, her sweet husband posted a picture of her, laying in bed, with a blur of a child, rushing by to kiss her. That sweet baby girl, tonight, is going to sleep without kissing her mommy.
Today, that fiery and bright and radiant woman.. that mother of her three young children.. the wife.. the girl whom every one of us wanted to meet and to be friends with, and even to be... tonight, on the way to the hospital, her heart stopped and it finally became too much for her body to bear and she died. Her spirit escaped from her wrecked body with the cancer filling her lungs and she flew away from this world...
She left her kids, her husband, and all of us, trying to understand how any of this could ever happen to a beautiful 25 year old girl...
She is gone from this world. But she has made the hugest impact on moms all over the country. Moms from every state have followed her story- and she has touched so many. I can feel the sobering sadness, pulsing through the atmosphere tonight. I can feel tightness in my chest and the tears falling down my cheeks, as I think about those babies going to bed tonight, never having another day with their mom.
I am broken-hearted. I am terrified. Why did this happen to her? She did what she was told? She got her treatment... she followed the steps that she was supposed to - cervical cancer is so treatable... but no... not this time.
I wrote on my Facebook page tonight... Cancer is indiscriminate. It is insidious and once it spreads, it is ruthless. The biology of unchecked cells growing feverishly out of control is unstoppable... and sadly, a body can't function in this state for long. Lungs no longer function to exchange oxygen, for they are filled with cancerous tumors, crowding out the airways. It is just the failure of physiology. Eventually, the normal functions fail and the cancer takes over.
It could so easily be me. I am doing all I can. I am changing my diet and doing my alternative treatments. I am taking my supplements and doing my walks. I am halfway through what is supposed to be the best chemotherapy regimen for my cancer. I am doing lump and bump checks every day, and I am doing my absolute damnedest to BE POSITIVE... and to WRITE and to LET IT OUT and to process all of this. I am some days, experiencing the greatest FEAR that it is not enough... and then, I am practicing EMBRACING THE FEAR, because my fear just tells me that this life is worth living... and that what I am doing right now is SO PRECIOUS TO ME...
My life, my thoughts and ideas, my children and my husband, my home and my work and my family and my friends, my community of moms and my prayer warriors... they all MEAN SO MUCH TO ME... I am NOT READY to leave... I am not ready to be sick and not ready to let cancer take me and I am surely not ready to even consider that I might die from this... but that is my fear.
I remember the day that I saw my lump on the mammogram, September 7.... it was just a little white lump, right there on the screen. I had been so afraid of this giant spiculated calficied mass, with spidered arms, reaching all the way through my breast. This tiny little lump - and I distinctly remembering looking at it and thinking, "... that tiny thing??? that looks like nothing..."
-- and yet here I am, nearly 3 months later, fighting for life, fighting to kill every rogue cancer cell remaining, fighting to embrace health and find a way to BE and to LIVE without fear and to MAKE THIS MOMENT AND EVERY MOMENT JOYFUL AND BEAUTIFUL.
Megan did that. She inspired me every day. Megan lived her life OUT LOUD and I want to as well.
She is physically lost from this world. But so many... so many thousands of people will carry her with them, as they go about their lives... maybe moms will be more patient with their kids... maybe a young woman will get a pap smear and find a cancer early and get it treated... maybe a fighting couple will see the futility of their arguing and they will come together in their grief and loss, and find a way to love and live together.
I am so sad tonight.. for all the losses....
Megan.
Joey.
Christy.
Diane.
Sweet Abby.
A 12 year old girl, named Kate, is home on hospice, dying of her cancer.
I am so incredibly weary of the pain and the losses.
And so many others, fighting for their lives... in the midst of their battles, wanting to live.
Lisa.
Neysa.
Uzma.
Jennifer.
Karen.
me. I still can't belive it - but yes, me.
Maybe this can teach me... teach others... that we all have to just live in the present... live like it is my last day. Love my kids like there is no tomorrow... tell them every day that they are amazing and beautiful and that they make my heart sing...
I. MUST. DO. THIS.
I still don't have faith... I still don't know if I believe that God will take care of us all, once our earthly bodies go or die... I still wonder about God and wonder if maybe, I am not good enough or faithful enough to be saved, once my day to die comes. I hope I will be. I hope, in my fallible state, that grace and God will save me...
I know that sweet Megan believed... and that she is free of the pain of her earthly body tonight. I pray that she feels only joy in the arms of God and that she is looking down at her family and giving them comfort, somehow, some way.
I surely will never be the same for this journey... Surely, I am changed forever.