Our Journey in the World of Cancer

I don’t know if you’ve been “there” or are still “there.” If you are, I hope you never have to leave. Because I was ”there” until August 9 of this year.

I had just spent the first week of August with my daughter Shannon, who lives two and a half hours away, helping her get her classroom set up for the new year. It was fun, because I got to do, well, the fun part: setting up her bulletin boards and helping with other classroom decor. 

Then, on Friday, my husband picked me up, and we went another two and a half hours north to my daughter Meagan’s house. We had a lovely weekend with her and her family, including our adorable three-year-old grandson. On Sunday we headed back home and stopped at Shannon’s on the way. We had lunch with her, took a drive by the beach, and then just as we were getting ready to head home, she showed her dad a strange message she got from the University of Miami Hospital.

He took a look, said the information didn’t sound good, and we needed to check into it. We drove away. He mentioned to me that the message had the word sarcoma in it. My heart stopped. (No, not literally, but it felt that way.) So we turned around and went back to Shannon’s apartment. He explained that the message seemed to be saying she had cancer.

A single tear slipped down her cheek, and she smiled. She said, “I’m not worried for me, but I feel terrible for you guys.”

We prayed with her and hit the road. I think I was in a bit of shock, maybe even denial. It couldn’t be that serious, or they would have called her. Right? 

Wrong. 

The following day I started researching, discovering what all the big scary words in the message from UM meant. It was not good news. 

Last year Shannon had a growth on her back. Our primary doctor said it was likely a lipoma, a benign fatty tissue tumor that would need surgery, but nothing serious. In December of 2025, Shannon had that “lipoma” removed.

Lipomas don’t usually come back. Shannon’s did. By June, it was big enough to be noticeable, though not nearly as large as the first one. She scheduled a second removal for July while she was off from school. Malignancy had never been a question in my mind, and aftert the second removal, we went on our merry way.

Until that message from UM arrived, which was odd because her surgery had been done through Baptist Hospital of Miami, not UM.

On Monday, as I began poking around at the message, which turned out to actually be a diagnosis of liposarcoma, a cancer of the fatty tissue, we realized that Baptist Hospital had sent specimens of her tumor to UM for a second opinion.

Also on Monday, the surgeon’s office called my husband confirming everything the message from UM had stated. Shannon had cancer.

My husband Serge is an incredible man. Not one to rest on his laurels and let life happen, he moved fast. God is good, and years ago, when we couldn’t have known any of this would happen, He led Serge into hospital chaplaincy. Serge is now the director of Pastoral Care at Baptist Hospital in Miami. His position means he has contacts. 

Serge made calls. He talked to the surgeon, then to our primary doctor, and they scheduled a CT scan for Shannon for the following day to be sure there had been no spread, particularly to the lungs. She drove down to Miami Monday night.

Enter the insurance company. They denied her the CT scan. Grr. On Tuesday, Serge “just happened” to have a doctor’s appointment. His blood pressure was through the roof, and it’s usually low normal. Concerned, his doctor asked what was going on. Serge explained all that had happened since Sunday. This doctor is a bigwig at Baptist, and he called the director of the Wertheim Cancer Institute at Baptist Hospital. Our primary doctor also got on the phone with the insurance company, and she made them approve the CT scan.

The scan showed there was no spread. Praise God. On Wednesday, Shannon had appointments with an oncology surgeon and an oncologist. They scheduled her for another surgery for August 24, and she went back home and back to work for a while.

The August 24 surgery was a success, as well as “success” can be measured in the world of oncology. The surgeon had to cut deep, but he got “negative margins,” meaning that, as far as they could tell, he got all the cancer. Praise God.

But despite cancer being around for millennia, despite decades of “advances” in modern medicine, there is still no way to know for certain whether rogue microscopic cancer cells are hiding somewhere in her body.

The oncologist prescribed radiation to the area where the tumor was removed. “Just to be sure” that if they didn’t actually get it all, the radiation would zap anything that escaped the surgeon’s knife.

But you never know if other rogue microscopic cells might have traveled elsewhere in her body, so “just to be sure,” the oncologist also prescribed chemotherapy once radiation is done.

I get it. This particular cancer is high grade, meaning it’s aggressive. And her particular type is rare, so there aren’t many cases to study. So just to be “safe,” she has to go through chemo poisoning based on an unknown. (If I sound bitter, it’s because I am.) The chemo she will undergo is aggressive. The oncologist was blunt. “You will lose your hair,” she said. “And it will likely affect your fertility.”

Losing her hair is the least of all the side effects, even if it’s the most visible. Hair grows back. The damage to her system from the toxicity worries me most. Shannon is unmarried, but she still has hopes of meeting the right guy and starting a family someday.

 I wouldn’t question chemo if she still had a tumor that needed to be eradicated. And while my head understands the logic—preventing a recurrence in the future—my heart only sees the suffering. And there are no guarantees that it’ll work if she does have cancer somewhere in her body.

After surgery, Shannon spent a couple of days with us, but she was anxious to get back to work while she waited for the radiation to start on September 22. Since she would be out of work for six to seven weeks of radiation plus more during chemo, she decided to give up her apartment. With little to no income for more than a quarter of the school year, it made no sense to be paying rent for an apartment that would be sitting empty all that time. I spent the week leading up to the 22nd helping her pack.

The move—and her horrible landlords—are a whole other story which I won’t go into, but we got her moved out by the weekend. A friend offered a spare room for Shannon to store her things, and another bedroom for her to stay in once she’s able to go back to work. Praise God! What a blessing this friend and her family have been. 

Radiation is five days a week, weekends off. Today, October 14, we complete session number 17. She has 16 more to go for a total of 33, so we are just over the halfway point. 

Shannon is doing well. Her greatest complaint is that she’s not in her classroom, and she misses her students. She’s having some mild sensitivity in the treated area that feels like the beginning of a sunburn, but she’s keeping it moisturized. Her spirits are high, and Serge and I have been capitalizing on having her at home.

Sadly, this is the “easy” part of this journey. The true hardships will start when she begins chemo. We don’t have a date for that yet, but it will either start late in November or early December. My husband and I have been doing a lot of reading on what to expect and what we, as parents, can do to try to mitigate the side effects of chemo poisoning. I admit, my mother’s heart is still hoping and praying every day that God will intervene somehow and keep her from having to face that. It feels so extreme over a “maybe.”

Some days I’m at peace, and I accept that we just have to go through this with her. Then other days I’m kicking and screaming (not literally) and begging God for a way out. Not for me, for her. I’d take her place if I could. 

But the thought keeps rolling back around that there is no way out of this. And every time I question it, I hear God asking, Do you trust Me? 

And honestly, at times I tell Him no. 

Because I have seen Him heal miraculously. I have seen Him heal through medicine. And I have seen Him say No, healing will only happen in Heaven. My father died of cancer when I was 16, despite thousands of prayers going up for him daily. 

Do I know God loves her even more than I do? Yes, I do. But it’s hard to let go and say, Your will be done, Lord. Especially when His will seems to mean she has to face a harsh treatment that might be unnecessary.