The Day Everything Shifted

Our last big trip before everything shifted

Walking into the doctor’s office on May 31, 2016—I just knew.

I knew he was going to say, “You have cancer.” I knew it would be thyroid cancer. I knew the names of the four types. And I thought I knew which ones I could possibly have—the "good" ones. The treatable ones.

How did I know?

Because that morning, I got a call from a surgeon’s office saying I’d missed an appointment—one no one had told me about. It was scheduled for the exact day I was supposed to get my biopsy results.

And in healthcare, you don’t get into a surgeon’s office that fast unless it’s serious.

No one is ever ready to hear those words.

Especially not in your twenties. Especially not when you’ve just started your marriage, your career, your life.

And not when the cancer turns out to be Medullary Thyroid Cancer—rare, chronic, and the second-worst option on the list I had studied. My whole world, simply everything shifted.

I wasn’t ready. But there I was.

And then everything moved fast

I became a cancer patient overnight.

We told our families. We asked pastors to pray over me that same day. Within twenty days I had multiple scans, bloodwork, appointments, surgical planning—and a heart that was barely keeping up.

I also started blogging during that season—writing from the middle of it, as it was happening. If you'd like to read the story as it unfolded in real time, you can find that [here →].

In this moment everything shifted.

And somehow… it changed nothing.

I walked out of that office still being Christine. Still a wife, a nurse, a daughter, a friend.

But now—also a cancer fighter.

The research I found was outdated and limited. Medullary Thyroid Cancer only affects 1–5% of all thyroid cancer patients—about 1,000 new cases in the U.S. each year. It felt like I had stepped into something no one talked about.

And based on what I could find, I believed I might only have 5 to 10 years to live.

That was the weight I carried out of the surgeon’s office. Not just a diagnosis, but a quiet fear that I might not grow old with Jeff. That I might never become a mom. That I could be gone before 35.

But this is the part that mattered most:

I knew God wasn’t surprised.

And I knew I wasn’t walking into this alone.

And now—here I am, turning 35 in a few days.

I’m still here. I’m doing well.

God is already beating the odds.

And His grace? It’s still sufficient. Always has been.

“My power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)