Croyle William - Cards for Brianna: a moms messages of living, laughing, and loving as time is running out

I loved my life. It was perfect. I was a thirty-three-year-old wife to a wonderful husband and the mother of the most beautiful little girl in the world. I had a job that I absolutely loved. We had a modest, comfortable home. Seriously, for a girl from the old working-class Milwaukee suburb of West Allis, WisconsinStallis, as we called itI was living a dream.

But then, one evening, a bomb went off: I was lying in bed and felt a lump on my chest.

What the hell is that? I exclaimed to Jeff as I popped my head up. Neither of us had ever noticed it. How long had it been there? I spent the rest of the night Googling lump on chest, trying to find any link that didnt have the word cancer in it.

I went to the doctor the next day; thats when the wheels started to come off. I was diagnosed with stage II breast cancer. Less than four weeks later, I had a double mastectomy. I followed that with chemo for more than a year, but it didnt work. The cancer had spread to my bones and liver. I was diagnosed as stage IV terminal, given two years at most to live.

About fourteen months after that terminal diagnosis, I was told the chemo drug I had been taking the past four months to extend my life as much as possible had been outsmarted by the cancer, bringing me a giant leap closer to my inevitable death. This was no surprise. It was my ninth different chemo, and the more that fail, the less likely subsequent ones are to work. Cancer cells eventually mutate and figure out a way to survive, and then the smart cells blast through your body like world-class sprinters in a hundred-meter dash. You hope you have a dumb cancer that takes a long time to determine how to get around the chemo. My cancer has proven to be very, very intelligent.

When my oncologist told me that I was terminal, he bluntly warned me what I was in for. Itll be one heck of a roller coaster ride, he said. Youll receive bad news after bad news after bad news. You just need to hang on tight for as long as you can.

Im still hanging on, though sometimes down the big hills, I boldly let go and thrust my hands high into the airbecause lifes just more awesome that way.

As Ive reflected on this wild ride of nearly three years, what has struck me most is that no matter how many bombs the cancer has dropped on me during its relentless, take-no-prisoners assault, the world has kept turning. I noticed it instantly when I went from living a normal life to being diagnosed and having a double mastectomy in less than a month. I was crashing and burning, yet everything and everyone around me continued moving forward. I still had deadlines at work. Bills still had to be paid. Laundry still needed to be done. My favorite TV shows kept churning out new episodes. My daughter, Brianna, and husband, Jeff, still needed me. And so, being the stubborn person I am, I decided if I ever had the chance to gain control over anything , I was going to seize it.

I powered through and got my butt out of bed when Bri called out in the middle of the night, even when I was ghastly sick from chemo. I stayed the course and hosted Bris long-planned birthday party just days prior to my surgery. It was a Yo Gabba Gabba theme held at our home with every rambunctious two-year-old in the state of Wisconsin. As screaming toddlers strung out on sugar gleefully bounced off the walls of our house, a huge piece of me wanted to cower in the corner with fear, not knowing if it would be the last of Bris birthdays Id ever celebrate with herbut I couldnt do it. I guess thats what Christopher Robin meant when he so eloquently said to Winnie the Pooh, Promise me youll always remember: Youre braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. Even though life can be painfully unfair, sometimes you have the ability to fight through adversity and take back a bit of control. And in those moments when I physically couldnt take control of anything, I learned to forgive myself and turn off that critical, nasty voice in my head.

Being confronted with your mortality is hard. So hard. But by accepting the randomness of life and the possibility that anyone could be eaten by a bear tomorrow, one can gain appreciation for the tiniest things most people take for granted. I never would have thought Id be the type to get up early to watch the sunrise. As cheesy and clich as that sounds, it makes me sad to think that without cancer, I never would have taken the time to immerse myself in something so captivating. I cant tell you how often I cringe when I watch other people explode in anger because the line at the grocery store is too slow, a red light is taking too long to change to green, or their smartphone isnt working. If only they knew how quickly the bald mom observing them would be willing to swap grievances. I dont always assume I have it worse than others, but oh, how I want to give reality checks sometimes.