Molly didn’t believe someone her age could develop lung cancer. Yet at just 30, after years of smoking with friends and being around aunts, uncles, grandparents and cousins who smoked, she received the dreaded diagnosis: Lung cancer.

A single mom, Molly struggled with telling her children about the disease. She found the answer in a book called When Mama Wore a Hat.

“They asked me why I read them that book, and I told them, ‘Because Mommy has cancer,’” she said.

‘Living again’

“The hardest part of any treatment in any hospital if you have to stay for a long time is homesickness,” she said. “Emotionally I felt broken down, because I missed my family. The people at St. Francis did comfort me a lot. I did a lot of praying. Without God there with me in my room, I probably would not have made it.”

The day Molly learned she was in remission, she immediately shared the news with her kids. “They said, ‘Oh Mommy, does this mean you’re going to live?’ I said, ‘Yes. I will … start really living again.’”