When you hear the words, “You have Cancer” your whole world goes quiet. Your hearing is gone and you can only feel vibrations. You see your doctor moving his lips, but you cannot hear what he is saying. All of a sudden, your heart falls to the floor and you find yourself in a fog of darkness. You are in a place you never thought you would be.

You leave the doctor’s office with written instructions on what to do next. Tears are in your eyes and you now get to walk back through the waiting room of which you came. The patients in the office are not cancer patients, they are women your age; young women; young, pregnant women who have that “glow” about them that says, “I am a woman who will be a Mommy and I will have everlasting joy!” And, next to those women are their husbands who have that same look of joy. You see them gaze into each other’s eyes with that look that says, “I love you. Together, we created this joy. We are so happy and in love.”

As you walk by, you look into their eyes, while they glance into your red, swollen, teary eyes. At that moment, you feel a knife stabbing you in the heart, and everything you have ever known bleeds out of it. You feel like falling to the floor, but you have to get to your car and call your husband to tell him, “I have Cancer”. You know he should be with you right now, but you told him that this appointment was not going to take that long. “It will be fine”, you say “it is just routine”.

Before you reach for your cell to call your husband, you reach deep within yourself to fathom what has just happened. For the first time, you suddenly realize that Death has crept upon you and you know you have seen the Devil.

The day is sunny and spring is in the air. The sky is bright, but you only feel the darkness of the news fall upon you. You look upward to the sky and with tears in your words, you say, “God, why are you punishing me like this? Without any reason, you took away our only baby son, Christian, just a year ago and now you give us this. You are taking away my womb without me ever knowing what it is like to have a child to raise. And, at the age of 34, I have to go through menopause. I have not even raised a child of my own, and now, I have to face menopause? How can you do this to me? How can you do this to us?”

It is two months later and you are in the Huntsman Cancer Hospital. You awake and see your husband and family looking over you. They are so glad to see you awake from surgery. You look down and see only a white bandage over your abdomen. You are in pain, a lot of pain. You want to cry, but only feel a lump in your throat with tears in it. You want to say how much pain you are in, but you know that no one will understand. You feel completely helpless. You hear someone tell you that you should be so happy that your hysterectomy went well, so well. And, the best part is that you do not have to go through chemo and radiation. But, you know what you are feeling, and if anything, happiness is NOT it. You think to yourself, “I should feel happy, but I have just lost everything. There is not one ounce of chemo or radiation which will ever take this heartache away; the heartache of hearing your one and only child will not make it; the heartache of hearing you have Cancer; and, the heartache of knowing that you will live, but your soul has died.

My name is Carri Lyons and this is my story.

On May 10, 2008, I was 5-months pregnant, and on this day, my husband and I lost our first born child, Christian Valore Lyons.
On May 15, 2009, I was diagnosed with Uterine Cancer, of which, I had a full-abdominal hysterectomy to save my life.
On May 15, 2010, I turned tragedy into a legacy and ran 2 marathons, 4-weeks apart. I raised $3000.00 for the Huntman Cancer Institute (where I was treated). 100% of this money went towards Cancer Research.

In June 2011, my husband and I will bike from Huntsman Cancer Hospital in Salt Lake City, UT to Omaha, NE. Our journey will be just over 1000 miles and we will raise funds for our international adoption as well as give back to Huntsman Cancer Foundation.