When Tomorrow Isn’t Promised
- jenyzjourney
- Oct 16
- 6 min read
When I first sat across from Dr. Ryan, I didn’t understand half the words he said. I only knew the look in his eyes. He told me he’d pulled together a team — the head of every department — and that these eight doctors would be in the operating room. They wanted permission to do the surgery in an observation theater so students could watch from above because my case was so rare.
He explained they would go through my eyelid to remove as much of the cancerous nerve as possible, open my forehead to take out the tumor, and then remove my ear to check the lymph nodes. I’d probably need a skin graft from my leg to my forehead, and if everything went well, I would recover for a few weeks in the hospital before beginning radiation.
He also warned me that I would need extensive radiation and that I should plan to relocate to San Francisco for three months, with maybe one or two days off each week to go home. It was overwhelming. Following radiation, I would then start a year of Immunotherapy.
But instead of fear, something in me shifted. I’ve always been strong-willed and independent, and the hardest thing in the world for me has always been asking for help. I wasn’t about to start now.
Still, I had to face reality. I didn’t have family I could lean on financially, and the cost of living in San Francisco was staggering. But I was determined. I cleared out my 401(k), called my sister — Bambi, a real-estate agent in Fresno — and told her, “It’s a seller’s market. We need to get my house on the market.” She didn’t even blink. She immediately took charge of remodeling, hiring contractors, painters, and carpet installers, and handled every last detail for me from afar. I will never stop being grateful for her, she understood my battle and remained not just my rock, my big Sister.
Dr. Ryan explained that surgery was scheduled for September 11th. My scans had only been done on August 25th. Everything was happening so fast.
And somewhere in the middle of all that planning and paperwork, I remember sitting still for a moment and thinking, How do you wrap fifty years of life into possibly saying goodbye in just a couple of weeks?
Do you live ready to leave at any time? I wasn’t afraid of death, but it was such a strange, surreal feeling — to know that in a matter of weeks, it could all be over.
How do you prepare for that? Who do you say goodbye to? What do you do with your stuff? How do you make peace with the idea of being gone when your body still feels healthy and strong?
It was a storm of emotions that didn’t make sense.
I was up, walking, riding, living my life — yet on paper, I was weeks away from possible death. Nothing about that felt real.
The next step was creating the radiation mask. I didn’t know what to expect. They laid a warm towel over my face that slowly hardened until it molded to every curve. When it set, I realized it wasn’t just a mask — it had bolts. They literally bolt you down to the bed during radiation so you can’t move. I remember thinking, Okay God, here we go. You’ve got this.
Oddly, focusing on where I would live for those three months gave me hope. It forced me to look forward. I started picturing myself after surgery — alive, recovering, walking back into the sunlight. I wasn’t going to accept defeat.
A few days later, I got on a quad and drove across the road to where Steve and Dave were building the old-west town. The wind in my face never made me feel so alive. I drove up tp them, stopped, looked at them, and said, “I have a rare stage 3 aggressive brain cancer. I’m having brain surgery.”
I think part of me hoped that by saying it out loud, maybe it would help me accept it — that hearing the words come from my own mouth would make it real or help me process it. But nothing changed. I still felt detached, like I was standing beside myself watching someone else live this story. It was one of the strangest feelings I’ve ever had. I never felt like I truly had it.
But here’s the thing — I never accepted it. I never accepted having cancer. I never let it define me, and I never once asked why me. I just knew I had something to take care of, and that’s exactly what I was going to do.
I called one of my best friends, Angie Nulick, and told her, “I’m going to write it down that everything goes to you, and you and Cheyenne (Hattesen, my Bonus Daughter) can figure out what to do with it.” She told me not to worry, that I wasn’t going anywhere — but I still needed them to know. I even sent a text so there’d be no confusion.
I also listed my cousin Ranae as my beneficiary and emergency contact. She’s calm, financially smart, and knows how to get things done. Between her, Angie, and Cheyenne, I knew everything would be handled.
Still, I started noticing how others reacted.
The majority of my family chose to disbelieve, not acknowledge, not ask, and simply remain silent. I felt like my cancer was a burden to them — something easier to ignore than to face. The truth is, they would never face it anyway. They just didn’t care.
And it wasn’t just me feeling this way — it was the silence from the people around me, too. Even some who knew what I was going through, who read my posts and saw my updates online, seemed untouched by it all. It was as if my words fell into empty space.
Did I really matter? Who was I fighting for? Was I fighting just for myself? I don’t know if people didn’t understand the severity of what I was facing, or if they were just busy with their own lives. But in those quiet moments, I couldn’t help but wonder — do I really matter?
I wasn’t looking for pity. I just wondered if I’d ever truly mattered to anybody — if anyone would notice whether I was here or gone. I wasn’t asking for attention or sympathy. It simply made me question if I had lived my life to the fullest, if I had made a difference, if anything I’d done would leave a mark.
Who would I be when I was gone? Would I just fade into a forgotten memory?
Maybe that’s why I don’t attend funerals anymore. My Daddy’s was the last one I went to, and I completely fell apart. I was literally carried back to the car by my Uncle Gary as my best friend Mary (Finch) held my hand. It was reality slapping me in the face — the undeniable truth that he was gone. I was a huge daddy’s girl; we were side-by-side in everything we did. Losing him shattered something inside me. I can’t handle that kind of goodbye. I’d rather hold on to the living memories
— the laughter, the strength, the moments that made them who they were. I need those memories to stay as they are — alive. Because in my heart, they still live on.
That’s where Flying J Ranch comes into play. It’s my answer to that question — my promise that nobody should ever feel like they don’t matter. I want everyone to know they have purpose, that they mean something, and that their life holds value, even when the world grows quiet around them.
Bible Verse
“The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”— Psalm 34:18
Reflection
In the silence of others, I learned that God never leaves. He sends the right people — sometimes just a few — to hold you up when you think you can’t stand.
