Unfortunately, sometimes people get cancer regardless of what they do or don’t do.

I have eaten organic blueberries for breakfast every morning for many, many years. I have eaten well in general — broccoli, cauliflower, very little red meat — and am at a good weight. Got my colonoscopy on time at age 50. Was diagnosed with stage I colon cancer at age 53. Was under an oncologist’s care for three years with regular scans and annual colonoscopies, then was diagnosed with stage IV three years after the first diagnosis. Two major surgeries, brain laser surgery, and twelve rounds of chemo in all.

Sometimes things just happen, no matter how careful you are. People in their late teens and early twenties get colon cancer. Young parents get colon cancer. Runners get colon cancer. Sometimes it happens.

I wonder what causes colon cancer to all different kinds of people. No one in my family has had colon cancer. I hope that medical researchers discover the cure someday for this disease — cancer — that brings so much heartache and loss to families.

I have been blessed to raise my children to adulthood, and I am not afraid of death except that I don’t want to leave my family. But things just happen, accidents happen, illnesses happen, and life can seem very fragile sometimes.

I am an ordained minister — have a seminary master’s degree — and, oddly, I believe there is usually no sense as to who gets cancer and who doesn’t. We are all in vulnerable bodies. We think we have control — eat this, don’t eat that, do this and not that — and a certain amount of that kind of thinking is good. We don’t want to ask for trouble in our bodies by neglecting our health.

But sometimes things just happen to our vulnerable bodies no matter how well we take care of ourselves, and all we can do is manage the best we can and pray for the grace to move through what lies ahead with dignity … and to be immensely grateful for family and friends and the moments that we do have.

In one day, I went from thinking I was free of colon cancer to learning that I was in stage IV.

I was on call as a hospice chaplain when my life took an unexpected turn. I’d had a baseline colonoscopy at age 50 and it was clear. Now, at 53, I found myself having another rather hastily-scheduled colonoscopy due to the presence of blood.

After the procedure, the surgeon told me he had biopsied a small but suspicious mass in the sigmoid colon. He scheduled me for surgery in three days.

On the day of surgery, I wasn’t nervous and was in good spirits. Although I had received no medication yet, I was blissfully oblivious and in a nice, self-protective state of denial. When the hour drew near, I was wheeled into a holding area immediately outside the operating room.

The surgeon came in, and my husband moved to the foot of the bed to make room for several medical staff. The surgeon sat down beside me and said gently, “The path labs are back, and I’m very sorry to tell you that you have cancer.”

I was stunned. I had done some chaplain work in a hospital, and I felt for him, having to give me this news.

It’s all right,” I said. “It’s okay.” Then I stopped myself. My first reaction as a caretaker was to take care of the surgeon, but even I knew that I did not need to be comforting the doctor.

I asked the surgeon what stage the cancer was.

He said, “We won’t know until Thursday, when we get the path report after surgery.”

My eyes sought my husband of many years, who is the love of my life. He was too far away to hold my hand, so we could only share a gaze. I realized that I might be leaving him and our children.

The wall behind him began to tilt, the room to spin slowly. It was strange to see it and know that my brain was creating this slow whirlwind to protect me from the impact of the devastating news.

I spoke up to no one in particular, “Now would be a good time for some of that medicine that relaxes you before surgery.”

I didn’t realize that a nurse was standing at the head of my bed, with my IV line in one hand and a syringe in the other. Within seconds, my surroundings seemed to swim and melt together. I was immediately wheeled into the operating room, transferred to a table with an enormous overhead lamp, and put under.