A Little About Me
Written by Cindy Jean Bohnert
My Children
My name is Cindy and I am a 51 year old single mother of 4 "children". My kids are hardly children anymore even though they all live with me at home and depend on me greatly. I have always been a stay-at-home mother, give or take a few part time odd jobs. My children are Ashley (26), Neil (20), Jessie (18) and Daniel (14) who are my world.
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Three years ago I was diagnosed with end stage or stage IV Carcinoid Cancer. The medical name of my cancer is even confusing to me and is very rare. It is so rare that many doctors have never heard of it. It's called Carcinoid Neuroenocrine cancer or CNET which stand for Carcinoid Neuroendocrine Tumour. All of these words are so rare that as I type my words are underlined in red (thanks to spell check) and yes the word tumour is spelled correctly to me because I am Canadian and we use the U in tumour. Wink wink.
I was a very traditional mother with a traditional family. I was married for 26 years and with my husband for a full 31 years. We were in our early 20's when we were married and went on to have our children. I stayed at home as he worked as a long haul trucker in the US. We had what people would say was a perfect family with birthday parties and Christmas with presents, Santa and turkey dinner with our extended family and all of the trimmings. We were involved with the children's school and all of their friends. We had our problems like most families do but we always worked them out and became even stronger.
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After my diagnosis on April 1st, 2016 my whole life changed. My husband left on the morning of my primary surgery and after a 5 week recovery and a lot pain of tears, I became a single mother of 4 with terminal cancer. Of course, the only thing on my mind was to fight the battle of my life so I can be here for my children.
Something unexpected and amazing happened in these past three years. My life became so much richer and I can truly say that I am happy. I have found my life's purpose which is why you are reading this today. My mission is to uplift and help others by doing what I love, writing and telling my story. So much can slam you down and grind your face into the ground but we humans are tough. We have the ability to get up and dust our knees off. Life is what we make it. I know that if I can feel excited about life then anybody can.
Thank you so much for your interest and reading my page. If I can make a difference in one person's life by helping them see what I see then my work has paid off.
Me, Cindy
Ashley
Neil
Jessie
Daniel
Mikey and me. He was 18 and I was 17.
My youngest, Daniel and Mikey.
I dropped in to see my son, Neil, at work when he used to work at a grocery store a couple of years ago.
This is my family. My mother, stepfather, brother, my sister-in-law, my sister and all our kids. My sister Jenny (on the far right lost her husband to cancer 5 years ago, leaving her and their three children behind. Her oldest son is missing from the picture because he was away at university.
This was a family photo taken in 1984. My hands rested on my Father's shoulder. He died years later in 2001 of Alpha 1 antitrypson deficiency. My daughter, Jessie, was just 2 months old when he passed.
