Hope is the harder path. Despair is easy. Walk with me fighting TWO cancers.

Hope is the harder path. Despair is easy. My name is Avril. Walk with me!

Amidst the everyday malarkey of being an autistic single mama to marvellous children and a sassy terrier, I discovered I have TWO cancers spread (metastasized) across my body.

Don’t make summer plans, said the doctors. You may be in hospice by then. You may not see another summer through. Ovarian cancer. Everywhere.

For many months, medical professionals dismissed me as a silly and annoyingly persistent autistic girl fussing about harsh pain, oddly big belly, bleeding, and devastating muddling brain fog.

I shuffled from scan to scan. Abdomen. Lungs. Brain. Ultrasound. CT. MRI. PET.

Tumours everywhere. I despaired. I sat in my rusty old truck and screamed at God.

The CT tech suggested I sign up for medically assisted death. I was sent home with pain killers for the dying. I argued with God in the night.

My bladder stopped working. I developed delirium. They inserted a catheter.

Doctors punctured a fat needle gun deep between my ribs sampling the cancerous fluid swirling in my belly.

We can’t sample the actual ovarian cancer tumours, the doctors said, because ovarian cancer is like white puffy dandelion seeds. Touch it and it spreads everywhere.

Hold still, they said, if you move, we might spread it.

Dandelion from the French: dents de lion. Teeth of the lion. The deep taproot of dandelions. White puffy bristles parachuting dandelions seeds. A child blowing on summer dandelion puffballs. The smile of a lion. A deadly bloom. Will I be alive next summer? Hold still. Hold still.

My life of biking to work, teaching, walking my bombastic little dog, watching Beverly Hills 90210 reruns with my kids, cooking meatballs, and playing underwater hockey disappeared. I bargained with God.

My body was blasted with chemotherapy on Saturdays. The chemo was a gift because it reduced tumours. And the chemo was dreadful. A poison cure. Some days I could barely speak or walk. My hair fell out. My teeth splintered. Black ear wax. A permanent crush of nausea. I hid under my quilt covers from God.

I asked my friend who had battled cancer, how do I carry on when I am heavy with tumours, heavy with fear? How do I carry on when I feel the red laser of a sniper scope on the back of my skull?

They replied:

“All I can say is that despair is a powerful narcotic; it's easy to forget about the future, or to let the cancer consume it.

Hope is the harder path, it rises and falls, but regardless of where you end up, it's a path that others can walk alongside you.”

Hope. Summer. Dandelion seeds.

Surgeons sliced me open, removed half a dozen organs. Removed an armada of tumours. Some tumours the size of oranges.

After a bleeding scare and dehydration scare, I was home just in time for Christmas. One season closer to summer.

I arrived home unable to sit up or shuffle to the bathroom without help and my darling terrier ate a dozen mince tarts. Mince tarts plump with raisins. Poisonous for dogs. My hound spent Christmas at the vet hospital. I spent Christmas stapled and stitched like a ragdoll propped up in an armchair.

A fresh year. Vet visits, orthodontist appointments, plugged toilets, school lunches, and chemo. I pleaded with God. Keep me earth-side to mother my children. Keep me earth-side for many summers.

The pathology lab sliced and diced and studied my organs and tumours. They announced there were TWO unrelated cancers spread through my body. Ovarian cancer everywhere AND neuroendocrine cancer everywhere. I had to google neuroendocrine cancer. Neuro-what cancer? Neuro-huh cancer? Neuro-why cancer?

I questioned God’s sense of humour. Two cancers. An absurdity of cancers.

I am stubbornly on the road of hope. I am now in continuing cancer treatment. I am juggling various symptoms, side effects, and medications.

Doctors recommend I do not return to work. This is heartbreaking. I adore teaching.

I am asking for donations to help with ongoing healthcare costs that are not covered.

I am asking for you to walk alongside me on the path of hope. The path harder than despair. The path that rises and falls. The path that others can walk with me.

Thank you for considering a donation.

Mountains of gratitude for the village of people who walked with me and still walk with me and my wee bairns and jaunty terrier through the wild woods of cancer land.