In the summer of 1991, we decided it was time to buy a house and have a baby. Instead of getting pregnant, I got what I thought were fibroid tumors. The week after we moved into our new house, I was scheduled to have surgery to remove the tumors. We thought our plans would be delayed about ten months and then we would get pregnant.

Unfortunately, life doesn't always follow the plans we make. During surgery, the doctors discovered I had cancer and they did a hysterectomy. My course of chemotherapy put me in the hospital for five days and home for two to three weeks in between. I felt sick for months. Andy came to the hospital every day after work and entertained me until he had to go home to sleep. When I was delirious or sleeping because of the medication they gave me, he sat and wrote. When he was at work, my mother sat by my hospital bed. She tells me she read one hundred books sitting at my bedside while I slept. I spent twenty-eight consecutive days in isolation during my autologous bone marrow transplant. It was the hardest thing I have ever done.

For my family, it was the most difficult year and a half we have ever experienced. But it was worth it. I am completely cancer-free. The doctors tell me that there is an excellent chance the cancer will never return. I am very healthy.

My priorities and goals have changed since I have had cancer. Very few things seem to upset me. If something happens that I do not like or that I begin to get upset about at home or at work, I think to myself, nothing can be as bad as what I have been through already. My goals for the future have become rather simple: I want to have children. I want to see them grow up and be happy. I want to be happy. I want to continue to teach. I want to grow old with Andy. I think these are the most important things in life. Anything else, like trips to Paris or singing on stage in front of an audience or writing a best-selling novel or winning the lottery, is just gravy.