Editorial
Front Page - Friday, March 12, 2010
Realtor finds blessings, strength in battle with cancer
David Laprad
C’Na Raines is a Realtor with Keller Williams in East Ridge. Through faith and support from her community, she’s fighting cancer that has resurfaced after several years of remission. Pictured with her is Summer Cobb, a girl she met while serving as a Make-A-Wish volunteer.
- David Laprad
Two opposing forces are locked in battle within C’Na Raines, a Realtor with Keller Williams in East Ridge. On one side, there’s the cancer that has resurfaced after several years of remission. It’s an insidious presence that’s as much a part of her genetic make-up as the DNA that makes her eyes brown. Her doctor at Vanderbilt says she’s “radioactive” with the disease and that it can materialize anywhere in her body, at any time. She hasn’t responded well to treatment, either, and her doctor is concerned about it spreading to her brain and lungs. The cancer is, for all intents and purposes, a mountain that stands between Raines, who’s 46-years-old, and a longer, healthier life.
On the other side, there’s faith. Raines doesn’t have an ordinary, garden-variety belief in God; rather, her faith infuses every cell of her body. It’s evident in the expression on her face and in every word she speaks; it fills the space around her and touches those with whom she comes in contact. It is the kind of faith that can move a mountain.
“My God is greater than the fight that rages for my life,” she says. “He’s able to heal me, and I trust him for every day.”
Doctors first diagnosed Raines with cancer in 1996. Its unexpected appearance confused them because she was too young to have what they found. DNA testing, however, confirmed she has a high level of a hormone women took in the ‘60s to prevent morning sickness. Adopted as a newborn, Raines was unable to tell her birth mother about what her doctors had discovered.
Raines beat the first occurrence of the cancer, only to see it come back in 2001. She overcame the disease again, though, and with a clean bill of health, embarked on a new adventure: real estate.
“I’ve always loved real estate,” she says. “Finding the perfect home for someone is like putting together a puzzle. And when someone is buying a house, it’s usually a happy occasion, so this business fits my personality well.”
Raines got her feet wet at Crye-Leike and then spent some time with a small, privately owned company before moving to Keller Williams in 2005. She was doing her best to survive in a broken economy when the cancer re-emerged in 2009.
“I remember the day I got the call,” she says. “My son, Hunter, who’d graduated from college in December, was walking through the door, and I let my guard down for a skinny minute. He told me my sickness was the whole reason he was home from school.”
Raines says her son’s arrival the moment she received the news was a sign she wouldn’t be fighting alone.
Standing next to her on the front line is her husband of 27 years, David. They started out as sweethearts at Soddy Daisy High School, and as far as he is concerned, they are nowhere near the end of their journey.
“I have the most amazing husband. I’m still here because of his prayers,” Raines says. “I’ll wake up at night and my hair will be drenched with his tears, from where he’s been praying over me, begging God to spare my life.”
Raines fights hard to hold back her own tears as she talks about David. She calls him generous and compassionate, and praises him for working hard while she’s been sick. Not only is he tending to his responsibilities as the business manager at Mountain View Nissan, he takes care of the cooking and cleaning at home and keeps a watchful eye on her.
When Raines’ cancer came back, David suggested she take a leave of absence from work and begin referring clients to colleagues. “He said if it meant I’d be with him longer, he wanted me at home, resting.”
Raines also has kind words for their son, who’s attending Albany Law School in New York, and their daughter, Courtney, who’s majoring in English at UTC. “She’s our bubbly, sweet, vivacious, beautiful girl. She and her fiancé are getting married in September, one year ahead of their original plan, because she wants me there. And I will be there.”
That’s a statement of faith for Raines, and she says it with conviction, as though she’s resolved the matter in her mind and is trying to convince other people good things lie ahead for her, too. Without a doubt, her co-workers at Keller Williams are pulling for her.
“When I was diagnosed last summer, they threw a surprise party for me. There were 135 agents there, all wearing pink — my favorite color. They called it Victory Day. I was overwhelmed. That spoke volumes about the culture of the company. It also gave me the courage to take the next step.”
The next step was surgery. Afterward, Raines’ doctor told her the cancer was gone. When Raines went in for her eight-day check-up, however, he told her there’d been a mistake, and she’d have to undergo a second operation.
As medical staff prepared Raines for the procedure four days later, the senior pastor and members of Abba’s House, the church Raines and her husband attend in Hixson, Tenn., prayed with David in the waiting room. They’re still praying for Raines today.
“I don’t have all of the answers. Why do babies die? Why do houses burn down? I don’t know,” she says. “But I do know God has given me a time such as this, and he would not have allowed me to face each day without the support of our community.”
Although Raines has a lot of backing, she and her husband have had to make sacrifices, including putting their home on the market. But each time they’ve had to take a painful step, something else has given them a reason to rejoice. During a recent Keller Williams convention in New Orleans, for example, the company named her its 2009 cultural icon in the Southeast.
Raines says these blessings have given her the strength to remain active with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, where she serves as a volunteer wish granter, and church, where she and her husband teach a Sunday school class for single parents.
“At some point, I decided I wouldn’t live in fear, but that I’d live joyfully,” she says. “I want people to remember that I didn’t sit around and mope, but that I made every day count.
“I’m not the only person in this community who’s struggling. We all have issues. My prayer is that God will allow me to be a blessing and an encouragement to others. I want people to see he’s able to equip us for whatever journey he lays out before us.”
Raines has not given up on this life. Following her diagnosis in 1996, her doctor told her to live as though she had one year left. Fourteen years later, she’s still alive, and even though there’s reason for concern, her doctor has yet to say her days are numbered. So she lives each day the only way she knows how: by the kind of faith that can move a mountain.
“That doesn’t mean when I go into surgery or another test that I don’t shake like a leaf, because that’s not something I enjoy,” she says. “But I’ve read the book, and I know how this story ends, and I’m OK with that. If God takes me home tomorrow, I’ve lived a lifetime. On the other hand, I might live to be 90. I might be the stinker misbehaving in the nursery home.”
|
|