Life as I knew it changed very drastically in 2005. Not once, but twice. 

In August 2005, I gave birth to my beautiful daughter, Lily Rose. She was a true blessing, and my husband Cameron and I could not have been more excited. Three months in, we were still learning the ropes of parenthood; so excited and so blessed. The only problem was that I felt absolutely awful. I was losing weight, I couldn’t breathe... I knew something was wrong.

In November of 2005, I got my diagnosis: mesothelioma. Malignant pleural mesothelioma, to be specific. My husband saw the terror in my eyes when the words came from the doctor's mouth. From researching online, you can quickly find out that the prognosis of mesothelioma is grim. Most patients are given about 15 months to live after diagnosis. I knew that I couldn’t be a part of that statistic. I needed to beat this.