'It started as a small mole on my wrist. Now I have terminal cancer and I’m writing love letters to my kids.'

She balanced motherhood, music, and a love for the written word. But a seemingly harmless mole on her left wrist changed everything.

In 2018, Elisa, now 42, was diagnosed with stage 2B melanoma.

The mole didn’t seem strange to her at first, but her mum kept insisting it looked “off”, especially when it turned a striking shade of purple.

“It was honestly the most beautiful colour of purple I’d ever seen,” she says.

“But my mum was so concerned, she couldn’t stop talking about it.”

Eventually, after the mole began to bleed, Elisa, from Idaho in the United States, went in for a check.

The dermatologist wasn’t overly concerned, but removed it as a precaution. Shockingly, the biopsy confirmed it was melanoma.

Because her wrists are so small, the doctors had to take more than just the skin. Muscle and even some bone were removed to ensure clean margins.

“The scar is pretty intense,” she says.

“It was a big deal, but they thought they got it all.”

A lymph node was taken from under her arm, and Elisa was declared cancer-free.

But just two years later, everything changed. Elisa started experiencing excruciating back pain and was struggling to walk.

Despite repeatedly being told it was just normal pain, she knew something wasn’t right.

“I’d had four of my five kids without pain meds. I know what pain feels like,” she says.

“This was different.”

When her leg muscles started to visibly atrophy, a specialist finally ordered an X-ray.

The results were devastating. A large tumour had completely eaten away her L3 vertebra and was pressing into her spinal cord.

Further scans revealed something even worse: Elisa had tumours in every single vertebra in her spine and two more in her brain.

Now officially diagnosed with stage 4 melanoma, she was told she had just two years to live.

“It’s like being tied to the train tracks,” she said.

“I just don't know when the train is coming.”

But Elisa—an award-winning author, editor, and publisher—refused to let cancer define her.

Writing under the pen name EC Stilson, she began turning her experiences into words, launching her blog, The Crazy Life of a Writing Mom to document the highs and heartbreaking lows of living with a terminal diagnosis.

“I decided to write scheduled posts, years into the future, so my kids would still hear from me after I’m gone,” she says.

“They’re like love letters that will outlive me.”

Despite her devastating diagnosis, Elisa has ticked off bucket-list dreams like skydiving, visiting Italy, and even singing the national anthem at a semi-pro baseball game.

She’s written books about her journey, including Two More Years, and continues to make videos that have earned her more than 1.8 million likes on TikTok.

But the journey hasn’t been easy.

She’s undergone gruelling radiation treatments—one of which involved being strapped to a table with her head screwed into place under a custom-fitted mask.

The process, designed to keep her perfectly still while they targeted tumours in her brain, was so terrifying Elisa says it felt like being “buried alive.”

“I get claustrophobic,” she explains.

“They suck the air out of this full-body vacuum bag, put a mouthpiece in, and cover you with a blanket. You can’t move. You’re just stuck there for 45 minutes. It’s one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced.”

Despite defying all the odds by surviving so long, she was crushed to learn that a new tumour had appeared, just as she had started feeling hopeful again.

Her doctors have warned that if the upcoming radiation doesn’t work, she could have as little as three to six months left.

Still, Elisa remains focused on what she can do. In a touching encounter, a friend’s young son asked her directly if she was going to die.

“I said, yes, that’s what the doctors say. And strangely, it was refreshing to just be honest,” she says.

“So often I’m the one comforting other people about my cancer. I’m the one helping them cope with my mortality.”

When the boy asked if she was scared, she answered truthfully: “Yes. Not because I’m afraid of dying but because I’m afraid of losing time with my family. Of not being able to talk to them if radiation damages my speech.”

Her words are raw, but never self-pitying.

“People say someone ‘lost their battle with cancer,’ but I hate that term. It’s not about losing. It’s about fighting every single day, even when you're completely worn out.”

Even now, as she deals with new pain, insurance delays, and an MRI scheduled a week away in Utah, Elisa is finding joy in the small things—listening to audiobooks with her daughter Indy, modelling for cancer awareness campaigns, and making TikToks from her hospital bed.

“I’ve learned to live in the moment,” she says.

“Tomorrow isn’t promised. Not just life, but your ability to speak, to move, to hug your kids. And that’s something I don’t take for granted anymore.”