Live life to the fullest, says Airdrie, Alta. mom diagnosed with terminal cancer

AIRDRIE, ALTA. -

Allison Godwin is in pain most day, but still finds time to smile and play with her two young daughters.

Godwin has a rare form of aggressive cancer called neuro endocrine cervical cancer. Doctors found it in seven spots in her body including her brain.

"I have chemotherapy coming up," she said. "Chemotherapy with the aim of extending (life), that would be what the brain surgery would do as well, or radiation, the neurologists are working on it right now."

Godwin has two stepsons; 13-year-old Harlyn and 10-year-old Deacon plus two daughters. Evelyn is three and a half while her sister Madison will be one in August. It was during her pregnancy with Madison that Alison was first diagnosed with cancer while in her third trimester.

"I had 25 rounds of radiation, I had six rounds of chemotherapy and then I had three brachytherapy surgeries, which is like internal radiation," she said. "January 2022 was my last chemotherapy at which point they did all the scans and verbatim they said there is not a speck of cancer in you so I was elated, as you can imagine."

But the 32-year-old mother started experiencing symptoms weeks later confirming the cancer returned. Her husband Erryn says the goal now is to spend her remaining days living life to its fullest.

"So there's a lot of time where she can't get out of bed or she doesn't want to get out of bed," said Erryn. "But she still trucks through it and all you can do is just make sure to help her and keep her motivated as much as possible."

It's an emotional time for the family and Erryn says it's important to be positive around the children.

"She wants to do everything," he said. "She wants to keep doing exactly what she's been doing, she doesn't want anything to change so, again, just goes back to strength, it's very inspiring, she's a strong woman."

While there are many treatments ahead of her, Allison is finding time to write letters to her children so they will know her when she's gone.

"I'm gonna label them for you know, 10th birthday, 16th birthday, graduation, first boyfriend, something like that," she said. "But it'll be up to (Erryn), if it's too hard on them just give them all to them when they're 30 or whatever but he said he'll buy like a waterproof fireproof safe and then dole them out as he sees fit."

Allison is focused on making the most with the time she has left.

"I don't want to say I have regrets," she said. "But I think there are a lot of things that I could have done that I wish obviously if I'd been 10 years old and being told you're a third of the way through your life, I would have done things differently."

Erryn and Allison are huge Toronto Blue Jays fans and made a spur of the moment decision to take Evelyn and watch the team play a home game this weekend because time is short and she wants her daughter to remember the experience with her mom at the stadium, together.

A GoFundMe campaign, aimed at helping the family through their struggles, has already raised approximately $14,000.