This mother hid her cancer from her daughter for 12 years
In May 2000, Jessica Stinner's mother Grace Stinner had to get a hysterectomy. Jessica thought it was to get rid of fibroids in her uterus, and Grace told her 17-year-old daughter she would be fine after recovering from the surgery.
"I just assumed that that was going on. It didn't occur to me that she would withhold information from me," said Jessica.
It wasn't until 12 years later that Jessica learned the truth: the operation was actually to remove a cancerous tumour.
You had a monster in your closet that could jump out at any time and kill you.- Grace Stinner
In 2000, Grace was diagnosed with a rare type of cancer called leiomyosarcoma. It doesn't respond well to chemotherapy or radiation, and can only be treated with surgery.
Grace learned there was a strong chance the cancer could return. She only had a 30 per cent chance of surviving the five years following her surgery.
"I decided, like, right off the bat not to tell (my kids)," said Grace. "Immediately."
"(Telling them) probably would have made dealing with it rougher, because then I would have to deal with their reactions, and them being upset and being worried."
Grace has three children. Jessica, now 33, is the oldest, and Grace's youngest child was only 7 at the time.
Grace told her husband and close friends about her cancer, but she didn't tell anyone about the high risk of the cancer returning and killing her.
Sometimes, living with that invisible illness and that uncertainty did affect her.
At the same time, she learned how to deal with it.
"I came to the realization that the uncertainty that I was living with wasn't much different than the uncertainty that all of us live with. It was just that I was more aware of that uncertainty than people in general."
In 2012, once all of her kids were adults, Grace finally told them about her cancer.
"I was just in a state of complete and total shock," said Jessica.
"I had to actually sit down with a piece of paper and make a timeline of the events in my own life and try to match them up with her getting diagnosed."
She also felt thankful that her mom was still around.
"The fact that it had gone so well for her, with such a horrible prognosis, I just felt grateful that I still had my mom, and kind of in awe of the fact that she had kept it together for so long."
In the end, Jessica told her mom she wishes she had known she was sick at the time.
"I could have stepped up more and it would have forced me to grow up and help out more. I wish that I could have been there for you in that way."
This story originally aired on March 12, 2017. It appears in the Out in the Open episode "Invisible Illness".