Holly’s Story

Site created on July 15, 2020

Hello All! Welcome to my CaringBridge website.  If you're here you probably know that I was recently diagnosed with Stage IV colon cancer. I can't even begin to describe the shock of my diagnosis. I had no symptoms and no family history at all. I was just young enough to miss regular screening as screenings aren't recommended until age 50. So, here I am and I'll be honest, I'm scared as hell. 


I've had a rough year and if I learned anything during  the past 12 months, it is the power of people. The tremendous support that I have received  before I ever knew I had cancer was incredible.  It made everything possible. And so with this latest turn of events  I'm again humbled beyond belief about the love and support that surrounds me. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for visiting this site. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Much love to you all!

Newest Update

Journal entry by Holly Powers

Hello All! My updates have been few and far between and I apologize for that as I know so many of you think of me often and remember me in prayer daily. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for standing with me through all of this. It really means the world to me.

I guess my absence is in large part due to my commitment to living my life and getting back to what I feel is somewhat normal for me. It has been a great time to focus on regular life. That doesn't mean I'm cancer free or that I'm in remission. It just means that after spending most of the last year focusing on beating a disease, I've now turned that around to focusing on living. For those who don't know, I moved back to Idaho in May to go back to work and to transfer most treatment here. Being back in the mountains and amongst friends has been healing in itself but it hasn't been without several ups and downs. I did targeted radiation to both sides of my liver first in April and then in June. I had a lot of difficult side effects from that treatment, much more than anticipated. I worked through it though and in late July I had a surgery on the primary tumor in my colon. It was successfully removed and I came home to recover and to hopefully be cancer free after surgery and radiation. That was what I was told and I was counting on it. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case. The radiation to the right side of my liver didn't go to the affected areas as intended and therefore that side of the liver went untreated. So, my doctors wanted to treat that side again but before we could do that they noticed that my tumor markers had gone up. They were worried that if we treated the right side of the liver that the other side and the rest of my body would be untreated while I healed from radiation. To be safe, they suggested I do a couple of rounds of chemo to kind of "calm things down" so that radiation would be a success. So, I went through 4 cycles of chemo with the highest of hopes only to be really disappointed. It turns out that the chemo they put me back on did not work and caused more damage to my liver. After many tests and procedures and high hopes of other treatment options, I was told last week that my liver is shutting down and there are in fact no more options for me. 

To say I'm devastated is an understatement. I knew my time here might be shortened but I never imagined it would be this short. A good friend of mine, Heather, once told me though that people are on this earth until they have fulfilled everything they are sent here to do. I so hope that is true for me thought I'd really love more time with everyone I love.  At the same time, I do pray I have made a difference, somehow, some way. 

For now my family is here and we are in a huge house in Victor that we rented so we could all be together. 

More soon and thank you again for everything.. Love you all...

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