Fighting With Hope

Unfortunately, I have become an expert on the side effects of chemotherapy since I’ve had 35 brutal rounds. I know firsthand what this does to your body. I’m now trying to use this knowledge to help my fellow cancer patients and make Jesus known in a unique way.

I was a healthy 27-year-old when I was first diagnosed with colon cancer. Then the wonderful world my husband and I had built was suddenly rocked to its core.

Surgeons removed a foot of my colon and all of the nearby lymph nodes after a colonoscopy revealed a “mass” blocking most of my transverse colon. When the pathology report came back, 13 of the 23 lymph nodes were cancerous. I was diagnosed with Stage 3 cancer. Even though the surgery removed all of the known cancer, I immediately began 12 rounds of devastating chemo. At the end of those 12 rounds, I was declared “no evidence of disease” and remained that way for about 6 months until a PET scan showed that the cancer had spread to my lungs and I was now considered to be in Stage 4.

In my three years of battling cancer, I’ve been through about a dozen surgeries, 35 rounds of chemo, and two months of chemo in pill form...

Placing My Daughter For Adoption

I got pregnant when I was 19 years old and single.

When I first found out, I was in shock and wondered what I would do. My family was very supportive of me raising my daughter or placing her for adoption, whatever I desired. I prayed constantly for a sign. And I got it a few weeks into the pregnancy.

My boyfriend broke up with me but he still wanted to be in our daughter's life. I was not comfortable with him and his tumultuous family situation being part of our child's world. So I took this break-up as a clear sign from the Lord. I truly feel the Lord needed that relationship to end and when it did, my decision was clear. I decided that placing my daughter for adoption into a loving Christian home would be what's best for her.....