How my story begins: I felt like I was healthy as a horse, but I started having some issues—bleeding after intercourse and slight pain in my pelvic area. Well, one day, it was just so bad I went to the doctor. They sent me to the ER to have a CT done, and the ER doctor sent me to Dr. Michael Gold at the Oklahoma Cancer Research Institute in Tulsa.

I went to the ER on September 2, was at the Cancer Center on September 3, and was told I had stage four cervical cancer and that it had spread. We hadn’t done scans yet, so I didn’t know the stage. It was really just the doctor telling me what he saw from the exam. I was sitting there with my husband, tears running out of his eyes, and I had tears coming out of mine. It was like I was breathing, but not breathing. I could see the doctor talking to me, but I couldn’t hear him. It just felt like an out-of-body experience.

So, we’re leaving the doctor’s office, and the whole time, I’m thinking about how I’m going to tell my babies and make it sound like everything’s going to be okay when I don’t have a clue. I was scared and didn’t know anything either, but I didn’t want to lie to my kids, so I was very honest with them. My husband and I got home, brought the kids into our bedroom. My oldest son—when I told him, he just looked at me with tears coming out of his eyes. He didn’t say anything. My daughter just started screaming, “No!” and crying. I was comforting her while my husband explained it to our 12-year-old. That night is burned into my memory. It feels like it was yesterday, and I can still hear their screams.

On top of that, I had to call my mother and father, who I am extremely, extremely close with, and tell them. I had never seen my father cry, but I could hear it in his voice when I told him over the phone what was going on. That broke my heart. I could hear it in my mom’s voice too. It was just so devastating to have to tell them that their youngest child could possibly die.

Everything happened very fast. I was diagnosed on September 3. Before October even got here, I had done all the scans—the CT, MRI, and PET scan. The cancer was in my cervix, and I had a 16 cm tumor. It was in my lymphatic system, all in my pelvic region, and I had three lymph nodes in my neck, right above my collarbone, that were cancerous.

We started treatment in October. I did 28 radiation treatments. November is when I started my chemo—November 11, to be exact. I did nine of those. On my ninth chemo treatment, I had 30 minutes left when I started having a reaction to the carboplatin, so we had to stop.

In between those treatments, we had done another scan, and the cancer had spread to my hip bone and my spine—my L2. So, I had to do targeted therapy for those, which they call a SABR Knife.

I lost all my hair, my eyebrows, my eyelashes—I lost it all. The pain? It felt like I had just been hit by a car over and over and over again. The pain was just ungodly—something you have to endure.

In the middle of all that, things started to calm down, but then I started having trouble with my face. I had to go see an ENT. Come to find out, I needed surgery in my face because of a MRSA infection. Every antibiotic we tried did not work. That was my first surgery. Then, I got diagnosed with acute cellulitis in my right nasal cavity and had to have a second surgery to clean out another MRSA infection. They widened my nasal cavity.

I had neuropathy in my left foot—it felt like I was walking on my ankle constantly. I could barely eat. I went from 115 pounds to 90 or less. I had no taste for food. I lived off waffles for six months—waffles and Ensures.

Then it gets harder, because no one tells you about the financial part of cancer. Bills still come. They don’t stop just because you’re sick. To keep us going, my husband had to sell a lot of his toys—his Corvette, two motorcycles, his diesel truck, his Mercedes—which I so deeply appreciate. But you start to feel like crap because it feels like all you’re doing is taking and taking and taking.

And as a woman, you know, we’re the caregivers. We take care of everything. We make everybody feel better. And I couldn’t do that anymore. That took me into a very dark depression. There were a few times I just wanted to quit everything. I wanted to quit fighting because I felt like I had just become a huge burden.

And then, on top of that, not being able to have a sex life? Not being able to be intimate with your husband at all? My skin was just so messed up and sensitive—I couldn’t stand to be touched or even near anything. Even clothing was an issue.

One night, it all just hit me—the depression, the anxiety, the pain, all the medication I was having to take—just all of it. I sat my husband down and told him, “This isn’t fair for you. I want you to have a good and happy life. And I don’t know how long of a life together I can give you.” I gave him the option to walk away.

That man looked at me and said, “For better or worse, in sickness and health. Now, what would you like for dinner?”

That was funny in the moment. But also, he meant it. “I will never leave you. I will never leave your side.” And he hasn’t.

I appreciate that. Six years we’ve been together, and we’ve had our ups and downs, but we stuck them out. We fought through it. As hard as it was, we fought through it together. When I fell into depression, he pulled me out, and when he struggled, I pulled him out. We were a team, trying to get through this—not knowing exactly what to do. All of this, on top of homeschooling and dealing with children and their emotions.

So, treatments went on, and things started to improve. The cancer went back to sleep, as I called it. It went back to sleep. I have been on Keytruda and Avastin for two years now—still on it at this point.

And then, as of yesterday, I had scans done, and come to find out, they found a spot again on my L2. So, of course, I’m having another out-of-body experience. I haven’t cried yet. I think I’m still in shock because I was almost at that two-year mark of my cancer being asleep—and it has awakened.

We compared scans—previous scans to this one now. So, I’m in what they call a recurrence. Now I’m just waiting to see the doctor and come up with a plan on how he wants to go about this.

I’ve been with the same doctor for four years now, so I love and trust him. Without him, without God, and without my family—I wouldn’t be here today.

And my story is still continuing. I love to share it because it gives other people hope. I don’t promise them, “Oh, you’ll get better,” or that there’s some cure, but there is hope. You can go into remission several times. I’ve seen it with a bunch of friends in my private group.

We help each other out. We tell each other things, ask the TMI questions—but it’s the greatest group I’ve ever been a part of. I mean, I can rely on them, cry to them, scream—it doesn’t matter. They’re there.

And it doesn’t matter what time it is. We’re all in different time zones, different states, and even different countries.

That has been a blessing.

Life before my diagnosis: Amazing! Married, working hard, doing what I love, also homeschooling kids—two were in high school. I felt like I was on top of the world. Beautiful house. Everything was perfect. And then, in one day—24 hours—my life was stripped.

How I felt after diagnosis: I felt very sick after my diagnosis, and since I am in early recurrence and my treatments are still ongoing, it’s kinda hard for me to answer all these other questions at this point. Until I talk to my doctor and get another treatment plan, the story continues—and I can always keep adding and updating.

Telling my family and friends: To be continued

My treatment: To be continued

How I felt after treatment: To be continued

What was most difficult for me: To be continued

What I did to help myself: To be continued

My life after cancer: To be continued

Where I am today: Today, I took the day off. After my news on October 11, I have been in bed with my dogs, getting my doggy love and support and some good sleep. Scan anxiety is pretty exhausting—waiting to do those wears you out. So that’s what I’ve done today, just taking a day with my dogs. Not many phone calls I wanted to take or anything like that. So it’s been an all right day, staying up on my meds like I’m ordered to.

What I want other women to know: Always listen to your body—I wish I would have. I had cancer for two years before I even went to the doctor, and I’m in nursing, yet I wouldn’t listen to my own body telling me, “Hey, there’s something wrong. You need to go to the doctor.” I waited two years, and then COVID hit. But the amount of pain I was in left me no choice anymore—I had to go see a doctor because I couldn’t move.

And don’t let the doctors push you around. You know your body. You are your own best advocate, and it is OK to get opinion after opinion after opinion until you feel like somebody is listening to you.

How I will try to help others: I will help others by putting the good, the bad, and the ugly of this disease out there for them to see in reality form. I believe we are so naïve when it comes to cancer—so uneducated—and we really need to become more informed about it.

This is not a "wham, bam, thank you, ma’am—you’re good to go, you’re cancer-free." No. It lingers and takes over half your life. You get a new pain, and you start thinking, "Oh no, is it my cancer?" Your body starts acting funny, and you wonder, "Is my cancer back?" It is always in the back of your mind. It never leaves you. You can control it and learn to deal with it, but it’s not something that ever truly goes away.

I want to help women understand that, help them feel better, and be that shoulder for them—because a lot of them don’t have that support.

Any additional information you'd like to share: All I can say now is there is still more to come. My story is going to continue with this new lesion we have found, so I guess we’ll be staying in contact.