My world shattered with three words: “You have cancer.” No matter how gently my doctor delivered the news, it felt like a knockout. For a moment, everything went dark. As I regained awareness, I felt my body grow cold, my legs tremble, and tears well up in my eyes. My chest tightened, making it hard to breathe. It was like falling into an endless abyss, surrounded by darkness with no sense of when I might reach the bottom. I cried out, but no sound escaped. On the other end of the line, my doctor waited in silence. My first thoughts were for my children. My son, Bryson sitting at my feet, was only three, too young to understand the devastation that had just overcome me. As I watched him play, I thought, My babies—who will love them? Who will take care of them if I’m gone?

But deep within me, there was a belief that I could survive this trial. I had faced unimaginable challenges before. At three years old, I fled my war-torn home in Laos, walking barefoot at night with my family, urged forward by my mother’s whispered warning, “Hurry, or they will kill us.” We crossed the Mekong River with the help of armed soldiers and lived in a refugee camp, caged like birds. My family left everything behind to seek a new beginning in Northern California, where I arrived knowing only a single word of English: “No.”

My young life was marked by relentless challenges, each one teaching me resilience. Though this diagnosis was the hardest test of all, an innate strength within me knew how to fight. As a Taekwondo instructor, discipline and the will to survive were ingrained in me. I will need that to survive this battle.