Chrisann Majernik decided on Apr. 3, 2023 that the shortness of breath that made everyday activity harder needed to stop. She went to the ER, and what she assumed to be long COVID turned out to be cancer. A pregnant daughter named Lylah made her view this as terrible timing, as she didn’t want to burden her family with her illness, but the incoming baby proved helpful in Chrisann’s search for courage. 

“The thing about courage – you really don’t have an option… I just decided, whatever it takes, I’m going to see this grandchild,” Chrissann said. “I’m going to be there for Lylah.” 

Two years ago, began a complicated series of health issues for Carroll Township resident Chrisann to battle, but it also began one of the most fulfilling experiences of her life: being with her grandchild Hazel, a fun-loving kiddo who just turned two in mid-July. 

Chrisann went into that ER with a 5.1 hemoglobin level, less than half the normal amount for a woman. It started with colon cancer, which metastasized into liver cancer, along with unrelated thyroid cancer. Her health issues went beyond even cancer, however. 

“Apparently, somewhere along the way… I had a heart attack. I didn’t even know,” Chrisann said. “I needed to have a triple-bypass.” 

This past December, Chrisann had her heart surgery. 

“If you say it’s courage, that’s the first time it wavered,” Chrisann said. “All I could think was, I just want to be with Lylah and Hazel. And it seemed like such a difficult road to get to a place where I felt like there wouldn’t be another hurdle.” 

Dealing with uncertainty and trying to stay positive accounted for the most emotionally difficult part of her health issues, she said. By the accounts of those around her, she did well, but she found many of the compliments misguided. 

“When somebody tells you, ‘Oh, you’re so courageous,’ or ‘you’re tough’ or even ‘oh, you’re our hero,’ sometimes, life hands you something you don’t get to make a choice about,” Chrisann said.

“Even when they say somebody lost their fight. I think that’s a horrible way to express it, because people emotionally, mentally, you may have fight still left in you, but physically, your cancer doesn’t care.” 

In the months since her heart surgery, her health issues have significantly calmed. Doctors no longer identify anything especially concerning, and she hopes she has moved past her struggle with cancer. Sometimes, she goes out with Lylah and Lylah’s partner Colton to shop, something that would have been physically impossible for her a year ago, Lylah recently pointed out to her. 

“We were down at the Strip District, and, I mean, I had my cane with me, but we were walking around the Strip District, and she said, ‘Mom, can you believe we’re walking in the Strip District? I mean, it wasn’t long ago we couldn’t even walk in the mall.’ And that is true,” Chrisann said. “We would maybe walk down two stores, and I’d have to sit down.” 

Best of all, Chrisann gets to be a grandmother. It makes her feel younger, she said, like she’s again a mother to a much younger Lylah, long “her world,” Chrisann said.

“Hazel is now the moon around my world. I can’t explain it. It doesn't have words. I would fight a lion to be with Hazel,” Chrisann said, laughing.

Hazel, a giggly little girl with the same curly blonde hair her mother Lylah had at her age but more of the mellow attitude of her father Colton, spends at least a few days a week getting babysat by Chrisann. 

This summer, Hazel found her way to her grandmother’s house because I would drop her off halfway. Hazel lives in the apartment upstairs from mine, the apartment her mother Lylah scoped out and recommended and urged me to move into with my wife last year. 

I met Lylah on a Ringgold school bus in middle school. We like to argue, the result of her being an unstoppable force and me being an immovable object, but we love each other. With Lylah and Colton’s blessing, my wife and I are Hazel’s uncle and aunt.

I know what Chrisann means by Hazel being such a force for positivity. Recently, Chrisann and her husband Steven joined Hazel and her parents for coffee, and she heard Hazel’s own personal pronunciation of Chrisann’s nickname, “Situ,” Arabic for grandmother. 

“I walked into the door of that coffee shop, and all I heard was, ‘Titu!’ And then she’s running toward me. And, I thought, ‘man, it doesn’t get any better than this,’” Chrisann said. “But you know what? I was wrong. It gets better all the time.” 

–Matt Petras