Mom of 3 Thought It Was Pregnancy Pain. Then She Learned She’d Been Living with Terminal Cancer for 5 Years 

When Michelle Hughes was 35 weeks pregnant with her first child in 2016, she felt a sharp pain beneath her right rib. She assumed it was just another discomfort of late pregnancy and mentioned it casually to her doctor. An ultrasound ruled out gallbladder issues but revealed something unexpected: a liver hemangioma, a benign blood-filled cyst. It wasn’t considered dangerous, and Michelle was reassured she could revisit it later if the pain persisted.

A week later, she delivered her daughter Juliet early, at 36 weeks. After enduring infertility and a devastating stillbirth, Michelle and her husband Ty were finally holding their first healthy baby. “She made me a mom,” Michelle says.

For years, the pain ebbed and flowed. Life got busier with work and another pregnancy. Michelle’s follow-up scans always showed the same result: the hemangioma hadn’t changed. So she focused on motherhood, ignoring the quiet warning signs her body had been giving her.

In 2021, pregnant with her third child, Michelle’s placenta ruptured at 35 weeks. Her son Hatton survived after a stint in the NICU, and Michelle seemed in the clear—until just days later, when she suddenly collapsed. Her heart was racing, and a rushed CT scan revealed the shocking truth: her lungs were filled with tumors. There were 15 cysts on her liver.

“I remember the doctor looking at me and saying, ‘We have no idea how this just happened,’” Michelle recalls.

Doctors suspected a link to her recent delivery, but a biopsy soon confirmed what no one expected: it wasn’t a hemangioma. It was cancer. Terminal, stage 4 EHE sarcoma — a rare and aggressive cancer so obscure, her doctor had never even heard of it.

“I was holding my 3-week-old son when they told me,” Michelle says. “All I could think was, ‘How is this real life? How has this been cancer all along?’”

There was a brief glimmer of hope: if the cancer was limited to her liver and lungs, she might be eligible for a transplant. But a PET scan revealed it had spread to her leg. The transplant was no longer an option.

The prognosis was grim. Her original doctor gave her months to live. But Michelle and Ty found a sarcoma specialist in Toronto who had treated dozens of patients with her cancer. “She told me, ‘Just live.’ She reminded me that I’d already unknowingly survived five years with this disease,” Michelle says.

That conversation changed everything.

The Hughes family moved from the Northwest Territories to Prince Edward Island to be near Michelle’s mom. They arrived with just essentials—homeless, jobless, and overwhelmed, but determined. Soon, Michelle caught a cold that landed her back in the hospital. Her cancer was progressing. Doctors prescribed an experimental drug.

Lying awake one night next to her newborn, Michelle scrolled Instagram and stumbled on a video: a woman with stage 4 cancer doing a headstand, laughing. “Her joy was real,” Michelle says. “She was living. I wanted that.”

The next morning, she got on a treadmill. She started by walking, then running for 10 seconds. Eventually, those seconds stretched into minutes. She began pushing a stroller while running—sometimes pulling another behind her. “The stroller weighed 170 pounds,” she laughs. “But I thought, I can do this.”

In 2022, she ran her first 10K race. In 2023, she finished a half marathon. Then she set an even bolder goal: a triathlon. She didn’t know how to swim. She didn’t even own a bike. But she trained for months and on August 20, 2024—the three-year anniversary of her diagnosis—Michelle completed a 126-km triathlon, ending in her children’s arms.

She didn’t tell anyone until it was done. “I wanted to prove to myself that I could,” she says.

Now, Michelle shares her life online to document memories for her kids and to inspire others. Her Instagram account, @myjourneytojustlive, has over 411,000 followers. She posts candid updates—no filters, no makeup, no pretenses. Just life, exactly as it is.

She talks openly with her children—now 9, 6, and 3—about her illness. “They know I have cancer. They know it’s serious. But they also know I’m living fully, mind, body, and soul,” Michelle says. They talk about their brother Gabriel, the baby they lost, and how one day, Mommy will see him again.

So far, Michelle’s cancer has progressed slowly. Her doctors can’t predict what comes next. “I might have weeks. I might have decades,” she says. “But I’ll tell my children when it’s time to worry. Right now, it’s not.”

On a wall at home, the Hughes family tracks Michelle’s life in weeks—a visual reminder of how far she’s come. “That chart keeps growing,” she smiles. “And I think back to when I thought my life was over. Look how much I’ve lived since then.”

When asked about her future goals, Michelle answers without hesitation: “I want to see my son get on the school bus for the first time. I want to see his little face through the window, looking back at me. That’s everything.”

Rather than a “bucket list,” Michelle calls it her living list—a celebration of joyful, spontaneous moments. “It’s not about dying. It’s about living with intention,” she says. “Try something new, something silly. Eat the oyster. Do the run. Dance in the kitchen. Remind yourself—you’re still here.”

As for what’s next?

“Life keeps surprising us,” Michelle says. “And I can’t wait to see where it takes us next.”