Randa Lea Henry
1949 – 2004
Who She Was
Meet Randa Henry
"Until you take your last tiny wisp of breath, you are alive. Most of your life depends on your choices, not the doctor's."
— Randa Henry, Beating CancerIn January 1997, Randa Henry was given one week to three months to live. Stage four-plus kidney cancer. Her family physician delivered the numbers with the kind of clinical certainty that is meant to prepare you — but really just takes your breath away.
Randa didn't accept the numbers. She found the best oncologist she could, enrolled in a clinical trial at UCLA, and went to war. She was a mother of four, a gifted artist, a teacher, and one of the most stubborn, funny, clear-eyed people her doctors had ever seen.
She lived for seven more years. She outlasted the cancer entirely — passing away from a stroke on April 1st, 2004, at the age of 54. She called that last chapter of her life "Cancerville" — and she wrote this book to be the guide she never had when she arrived there.
Randa building the family playhouse
"By the time you are forty-seven, you think you have experienced most thoughts humans are capable of. Well, I'm here to tell you, I hadn't scratched the surface."
This is Randa at Henry Point on Hayden Lake, doing what she always did — building something, fixing something, refusing to stand still. She was a mother, a teacher, an artist, and one of the most determined people anyone who knew her had ever seen. Cancer picked the wrong woman.
