Ladybugs, libraries and love: How this grandma weathered a Stage 4 cancer diagnosis

In 2024, Cori Adams was diagnosed with Stage 4 ovarian cancer. With two generations of women before her dying before the age of 50, Adams held onto hope. She is now two years cancer free. (Cori Adams/KSL via CNN Newsource)

PAROWAN, Iron County, Utah (KSL) -- When Cori Adams sees a ladybug, it’s a reminder that she’s not alone in a world where people around her have left far too soon.

And when her youngest daughter brought her a picture of a ladybug while she was lying in the hospital with Stage 4 ovarian cancer, she knew it wasn’t her time just yet.

“My mom died at 42, and her mom died at 41,” Adams said. “My biggest life goal was to make it to 50.”

In April 2024, that “life goal” was threatened when Adams, then 47, felt a persistent pain in her mid-section that was caused by the twisting of her ovaries due to a large cancer growth.

“The cancer was the size of a 25-week fetus,” she said. “It attached to my ovaries. Even though I had a hysterectomy 15 years ago, I left my ovaries in. They said if it wouldn’t have twisted, I would have been dead within two weeks because my cancer levels were so high.”

The cancer diagnosis came on the heels of what Adams described as a “perfect day.”

“I got up early to coach three- and four-year-old soccer with my daughter,” Adams recalled. “Her kids are on the team, and we came home, and I had a big barbecue with my kids, and then we went out to the local farm to help dock lambs because it was lambing season.

“It was just a big, beautiful day.”

Through the use of laparoscopic retrieval bags, doctors were able to isolate the cancer during the retrieval process to ensure it didn’t spread. Today, there are no new cancer growths to treat.

Adams said her near brush with death caused her to see life through a different lens.

“It’s given me a whole different perspective on life,” Adams said. “I had a rough childhood. I got pregnant with twins at 17. I had a rough divorce. I struggle with religion, and I struggle fitting in. But none of that matters anymore.

“Because when you’re laying in a hospital bed and the doctor is telling you and your family that you’re probably not going to make it, I thought of all the Christmases I was going to miss and all the grandkids I wasn’t going to kiss. ... It’s why there are bunnies in my library. It’s why I look for ladybugs.”

Adams is the library director at the Parowan City Library and has spent decades creating a safe place for children, adding that she spent much of her childhood with her grandmother, having grown up with a mother who suffered from the effects of drug abuse.

“To be on this earth was very difficult for my mom, and she overdosed,” Adams said. “They said it was accidental, but I’ll never know.”

Adams’ grandmother would call her “Ladybug,” and when she passed away from multiple sclerosis, Adams held onto not only the nickname but also adopted it as a symbol that would carry her through some very hard times.

“Every time I see a ladybug, I know that somebody is with me and I’m going to be OK, and I’m not alone,” Adams said. “When I got sick, people were sending me all these random pictures of ladybugs and I still get them to this day.”

Two years after the perfect day turned into a fear-filled night, Adams still looks for ladybugs and finds ways to bring joy to her life and the lives of others. Working at the library, she said, has given her the chance to do two of her very favorite things — spend time with children and read children’s books.

“Children’s books are so innocent and colourful,” she said. “If I’m having a bad day, I go and take six children’s books off the shelf and just read.”

Adams has recently written her own children’s book, titled “The Adventures of Bronco and Willie,” that highlights her life with her two Bernedoodles.

She said writing this book is on her list of “Why nots?”

“The thing is, I didn’t tell a soul. I didn’t tell anyone I was writing this book until it was done,” she said. “I just wanted something for me, and I didn’t want anybody’s opinion. I just wanted something to leave behind.

“It was just another one of my ‘why nots?’ I don’t know how long I’m going to be here. Why not? Let’s just write a book. Why not go get a bunny and bring it to the library?”

Another one of her “why nots?” was to get a tattoo.

“I have a tattoo of a ladybug that’s climbing up a wishing flower — a dandelion that turns to seed,” she said. “(The seeds) are the wishes that I hope I get to make. It’s on the arm that doctors always draw blood from because I’m always getting tested. I have it there to remind me that I still have wishes to make.”

Adams will turn 50 at the end of this year, and her daughter, Megan Morales, told KSL that she is grateful her mom is still alive.

“She is so resilient and just talking to her, you would never know all the horrible things that have happened in her life,” Morales said. “She never uses it as an excuse to have a bad attitude.

“Growing up, she was exactly who I wanted to be. I am so blessed that she’s the woman that I get to look up to and my daughter gets to look up to.”

By Arianne Brown, KSL