Weddings. They are a celebration and proclamation of love. But as Lynda Downton plans her own winter wedding, it is also a reminder of her own mortality.
 
Last month, Downton was diagnosed with stage four Cholangiocarcinoma, a liver cancer that blocks the bile ducts of the liver. She hadn’t been feeling quite right for some time and it would take three trips to a Didsbury emergency room before the doctors would deliver the news.
 
“It took three times in there [the emergency room] to figure this out,” Downton said. “Then I went back and the doctor says, ‘I'd hate to say this, I hope I'm wrong but from your CT scan, it looks like you have cancer, the bad ‘c’ word’.”
 
Liver surgery was not a feasible option for Downton as the cancer had metastasized and spread into her blood vessels. Because the cancer is obstructing her bile ducts, not allowing the bile to travel to her small intestine, Downton developed jaundice. She underwent a biliary tube procedure in order to drain the bile properly from her liver.
 
“I got really itchy from it because it was trying to come out of my body,” she said. “I'm on my third biliary tube and it seems to be working now.”
 
Downton feels as if she is in a dream, hoping she will wake up.
 
“I'm only 54 years old. Is this real? I don't think it's really sunk in for any of us yet.”
 
In a tearful plea, she said liver cancer is a silent killer and too often it is only detected when it’s too late.
 
“I would love to recommend that people push their doctor, once a year to go in and get an ultrasound done on their liver,” she said. “You don't know you have it until it's too late. If I would have known earlier, I may have had surgery and I may be okay now.”
 
When Downton’s son, Calvin Gow, heard the news, he decided he wanted to gift his mother with a trip home to Newfoundland.
 
“I know she's always wanting to travel back there, and I'd like to give my mom the chance to her family before things take a turn for the worse,” Gow said.
 
Gow set up a Gofundme page that would help him raise the funds to send his mom to her beloved province.
 
“I was pretty devastated when I first found out I like to think of myself as being mentally strong, but there's not much that I can do about it,” he said.
 
Downton, who has lived in Alberta since 1979 has left a piece of herself in Newfoundland.
 
“It'll always be home. You’d have to go there to experience it. It's just beautiful. It’s not just the ocean, it’s the trees, it’s the colour of the trees,” she said. “It's just home.”
 
But it wasn’t just the lover of her home province that made Downton want to fly back East. It was love for her fiancé.
 
“She had all these plans with her fiancé to get married. Now we're unsure exactly how that's going to work,” Downton’s son said. “Her fiancé has made her extremely happy and they love each other so much. He wants to at least give her that experience before the end.”
 
Downton said her doctors have advised her against travelling in her condition.
 
“My fiancé wants to marry me. He loves me and he wants to do it now, she said. “I don't know where I'll be next year. I love him. He loves me.”
 
Having been diagnosed with a terminal illness, Downton has also reflected on what is truly important in life, realizing that time is fleeting.
 
“My family is important in my life right now. That's all that's important to me as my family, their health. Nothing else matters,” she said. “Take that day off work and go home and spend it with your family. If you can.”
 
Downton and her fiancé are currently planning for a December wedding even as she is starting a chemotherapy regimen in the coming weeks.
 
“[My mom] is strong, loving, and dependable. She's one of the strongest people I've ever met, that I've ever known.,” Gow said of his mom.
 
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