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Christa is looking at her imminent death. So she made a roadmap for her family to navigate it.

A Canadian mum with terminal cancer has managed to find comfort in her cruel and unfair fate.

As reported by People, Christa Wilkin discovered she had cervical cancer on the exact same day her son Austin was born on June 16, 2016.

The 34-year-old mum-of-one says she would never have discovered she had the cancer had it not been for her pregnancy.

“I went into early labour and that’s when they found the tumour on my cervix,” she told the publication.

Christa began treatment immediately, and the cancer appeared to have stabilised in July 2017.

She said she and her husband, Chris, 34, returned to their lives as hands-on parents to Austin, thinking nothing more of it.

But in April of this year, Christa received a devastating diagnosis – the cancer had returned and it had spread to her lungs.

Christa Wilkin
Canadian mum Christa Wilkin says she's found comfort in planning what will happen after her death. Image: Facebook
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"I was surprised and heartbroken. I don’t really have any symptoms… so you have disbelief," she said of discovering the cancer had come back.

This time, doctors told Christa the cancer was treatable but not curable.

She said the most terrifying part of her whole ordeal is not actually knowing how long she has left to live.

"The hardest for me is thinking about when my son grows up, am I gonna be there? When he graduates or if he wants to get married or have kids. Projecting into the future is hard if you don’t know that future’s gonna happen," she told People.

To regain some "control" of life, Christa said she's started planning what will happen after she dies.

She's called it a "roadmap" to her death, and aside from writing her will, has already made plans to donate her body to a university in Ontario. She has decided where she wants to die and has even penned her own eulogy.

In a blog post for Love What Matters, she wrote: "The bigger question is not so much where I want to be [when I die], but who I want to be with. My family. My friends. But not everyone. There are some people who take care of you and others who you always find yourself taking care of them. I want to surround myself with those who take care of me.

She continued: "All of these questions, and more, are part of the palliative care process. We don’t often talk about death in our society. Even the word death, I find, is hard to say. We say euphemisms like, he ‘passed away’ or my sister is ‘deceased.’ We assume that we have time to ponder these questions, and for many of us, we do. We will contemplate questions about our care, years in the future, when we have more grey hairs on our heads (and chins).

"But asking yourself these questions now is such a loving thing to do for yourself and others."

You can read Christa's full blog post here.

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