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Independence, MO —
In her 28 years of life, Laura Lynn enjoyed helping other people.
That desire didn’t end when Lynn died three weeks ago after a two-and-a-half year battle with a rare form of ovarian cancer. Lynn, a 2002 William Chrisman High School graduate who lived most of her life in Independence, told her family before her June 9 death in Scottsdale, Ariz., that she wanted her body donated for scientific research.
“This is Laura trying to help other people,” her mother, Joan Lynn, says of her daughter’s body being donated in Phoenix for scientific research.
Laura Lynn was the subject of a story in The Examiner in May 2010, when she was 26, in which she detailed her stage 4 ovarian cancer. At that time, doctors told her that the disease would beat her, but Lynn refused to give in.
Instead, she focused on spending time with her daughter, Kaylee, by sleeping all day so she would be awake and alert to spend time with the girl after school.
In the summer of 2010, it seemed there was some good news with Lynn’s terminal illness. Although her body wasn’t responding positively to chemotherapy treatments, she underwent surgery in June 2010 in St. Louis, a process that removed most of the tumors in her body.
But three months later, Lynn and her family learned that she needed to restart chemotherapy right away, so she started on a round of chemotherapy that was new to the treatment of ovarian cancer, says her sister Nancy Lynn, who is an oncology nurse at Centerpoint Medical Center.
“She was so young, so there weren’t really answers,” Nancy says of Laura’s rare form of ovarian cancer. “She wasn’t at risk – she wasn’t severely overweight, she had had a child, she was young and she didn’t have a family history.”
But on Jan. 21, 2011, Laura’s 27th birthday, doctors told her that the cancer was still bad, that there was nothing else they could do, that she should go into hospice care. Still, she attended a surprise party at Diamond Bowl on the Square for her birthday.
Laura still didn’t give in, though. She moved to Arizona in February 2011 to live with her sister, Tammy, who legally adopted Kaylee. Nancy Lynn says Laura felt relatively well for about the first six months of 2011. Laura and Kaylee went parasailing in Hawaii, as Laura, who played basketball in high school, tried to remain active in her natural tomboy style.
In her 28 years of life, Laura Lynn enjoyed helping other people.
That desire didn’t end when Lynn died three weeks ago after a two-and-a-half year battle with a rare form of ovarian cancer. Lynn, a 2002 William Chrisman High School graduate who lived most of her life in Independence, told her family before her June 9 death in Scottsdale, Ariz., that she wanted her body donated for scientific research.
“This is Laura trying to help other people,” her mother, Joan Lynn, says of her daughter’s body being donated in Phoenix for scientific research.
Laura Lynn was the subject of a story in The Examiner in May 2010, when she was 26, in which she detailed her stage 4 ovarian cancer. At that time, doctors told her that the disease would beat her, but Lynn refused to give in.
Instead, she focused on spending time with her daughter, Kaylee, by sleeping all day so she would be awake and alert to spend time with the girl after school.
In the summer of 2010, it seemed there was some good news with Lynn’s terminal illness. Although her body wasn’t responding positively to chemotherapy treatments, she underwent surgery in June 2010 in St. Louis, a process that removed most of the tumors in her body.
But three months later, Lynn and her family learned that she needed to restart chemotherapy right away, so she started on a round of chemotherapy that was new to the treatment of ovarian cancer, says her sister Nancy Lynn, who is an oncology nurse at Centerpoint Medical Center.
“She was so young, so there weren’t really answers,” Nancy says of Laura’s rare form of ovarian cancer. “She wasn’t at risk – she wasn’t severely overweight, she had had a child, she was young and she didn’t have a family history.”
But on Jan. 21, 2011, Laura’s 27th birthday, doctors told her that the cancer was still bad, that there was nothing else they could do, that she should go into hospice care. Still, she attended a surprise party at Diamond Bowl on the Square for her birthday.
Laura still didn’t give in, though. She moved to Arizona in February 2011 to live with her sister, Tammy, who legally adopted Kaylee. Nancy Lynn says Laura felt relatively well for about the first six months of 2011. Laura and Kaylee went parasailing in Hawaii, as Laura, who played basketball in high school, tried to remain active in her natural tomboy style.
At Santa-Cali-Gon Days, Laura went on a few rides, but she never got to fulfill her goal of riding a roller coaster with Kaylee, due to the pain throughout her body.
“She still wanted to play,” Joan Lynn says. “She still wanted to play and have fun.”
Things began to change in January of this year when Laura’s father, George, died at age 59. Joan says her husband had been severely depressed because of Laura’s illness and had basically stopped eating.
Laura was unable to attend her father’s funeral because she had been in the hospital for 10 days. For the last five months of her life, she would be in and out of hospice houses.
“She was scared up until the end – she didn’t know what to expect,” Nancy says.
Laura did know one thing, though: She didn’t want to have a funeral. She wanted her family and friends to have a celebration of life, a party, in her memory when that time came. So, tonight, from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m., a celebration of Laura’s life will take place at the Courthouse Exchange on the Square.
Her legacy, Nancy says, was to just live life, to enjoy the experiences and learn something wherever you can.
“She was a free spirit – she really was,” Nancy says. “My sister touched so many people’s lives. There wasn’t a person she met who didn’t love her – she was just that kind of person.”
On June 9, Laura was surrounded by her family, including 8-year-old Kaylee, in Arizona. She took a deep breath and yawned.
“Laura, are you getting ready to take a long nap?” her mother asked.
She took another big yawn and closed her eyes for the last time.
One of Laura’s favorite quotations was that “Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”
“That’s how she tried to live her life this past year-and-a-half, making those moments for her daughter,” Nancy Lynn says. “Kaylee was her whole life.”
