Four days after learning she had adenocarcinoma, Erin Hurson sat alone in her bedroom with the blinds closed.
Next door, her neighbours gathered to celebrate their three-year-old’s birthday. Erin remembers hearing the sounds of friends, children, and families having fun together. Life was carrying on just outside her window, while Erin felt completely removed from it.
“I was just feeling so alone and lost and in a weird kind of limbo, paralyzed by my diagnosis.”
At 36, Erin was married with three young children and had spent 15 years as an elementary school teacher. Already burnt out and questioning what she wanted from the next chapter of her career, she had taken a leave of absence from teaching.
Then Cancer Changed Everything
Despite the devotion of her husband and the support of family and friends, Erin felt overwhelmed by what the diagnosis could mean, especially for her children.
“My kids were so young and I worried that I might not have all the time I needed with them. I wondered, would I be able to continue raising them?”
Sitting upstairs that day, listening to the birthday party next door, Erin started searching online for cancer support.
That’s when she first found Wellspring Alberta.
“I thought, that’s where I’ll go: a place where people will understand and know what I need. I was instantly relieved to know that there was something out there that could help care for me beyond the medical side of cancer. A place that understood everything else that comes with a diagnosis.”
But first, there was cancer to deal with.
After the Cancer was Gone
Over the months that followed, Erin’s life became consumed by appointments, tests, and scans. Her husband joined her for every appointment, while her mom, a nurse, helped her navigate test results and medical terminology.
There were difficult days and long periods of uncertainty. For various reasons, Erin’s surgery was delayed until eight months after her diagnosis.
All the while, she worried about what cancer was doing to the people she loved.
“I kept thinking about what I was putting everyone else through, and the heaviness of that burden felt just horrible.”
Then, finally, came the news Erin and her family had desperately hoped for. Surgery had successfully removed the cancer. She would not need further treatment.
The cancer was gone. But its impact wasn’t.
Six months after surgery, still on leave from teaching, she found herself floundering. Cancer had disrupted her health and her family life. Not only that, her sense of what she wanted for her future was completely shattered. Now she was supposed to move forward, but she wasn’t quite sure what moving forward looked like.
She remembered the place she’d discovered online months earlier.
And so, she went to Wellspring.
A Place to Rebuild
“The timing for Wellspring programs was perfect for me,” Erin said. “I was in a rebuilding phase of my life, and I needed support and direction. I needed places to go and people to see — people like myself who would lift me and help me through this, knowing everything I’d been through.”
One of the first programs Erin tried was Sound Bath Meditation.
After the session, she wandered into the common area and sat down to work on a puzzle. Eventually, an alarm on her phone interrupted her. It was time to pick up her children.
Then Erin realized something.
For the first time in what felt like forever, she hadn’t thought about cancer. For nearly 45 minutes, the heaviness of cancer was lifted, and she was simply Erin again.
“I thought, ‘Wow! I just spent 45 minutes in total peace’. I sort of forgot what that felt like, to just not be ruminating about cancer all the time. That’s when I realized how much I had been needing a place like Wellspring.”
After months when cancer had demanded so much of her attention, those 45 minutes of peace felt significant.
Erin began trying more Wellspring programs: drawing, yoga, exercise, cooking, gardening workshops and seasonal activities. But it wasn’t simply having activities to fill her calendar that mattered. At Wellspring, cancer didn’t need to be explained. She was surrounded by people who understood something about the uncertainty and disruption it could bring to a life.
“I built friendships and experienced community; I felt very connected to the people and the instructors.”
Yoga helped her discover stillness. Through Zentangle, a meditative drawing practice, she found an unexpected lesson about how to approach what came next.
“There’s something about one stroke at a time that’s just so much like life. If you just take one little step at a time, you’ll get to where you’re meant to go.”
It also awakened something else.
“That program really boosted my confidence. The facilitator was so affirming and inspiring; she made me feel like I could be an artist.”
One Less Thing to Worry About
At a time when Erin wasn’t working, there was another part of Wellspring that mattered enormously: every program she accessed was free of charge.
“As a parent, you want your family to be okay, to be good, to feel normal, but of course when you have cancer, nothing feels okay or normal,” Erin said.
She already felt cancer was demanding too much from her family. Spending money on yoga, art classes or a gym membership while she wasn’t earning an income felt like another burden she didn’t want to impose.
At Wellspring, cost wasn’t something she had to worry about. Every program was available to Erin and her family free of charge.
“Knowing there were very skilled, trained professionals leading these programs, and that it didn’t cost anything for me to take these programs, especially since I wasn’t working, was just such a relief.”
And the support wasn’t limited to Erin.
She enrolled her nine-year-old daughter Peighton in Wellspring’s Kids in the Kitchen program, giving the two of them an opportunity to create memories together while they were still processing what their family had experienced. Her sons spent time in the kids’ space, and her husband enjoyed books Erin brought home from the Wellspring library.
“My whole family knows the impact Wellspring has had,” Erin said. “They really know how much it changed my life and, in turn, their lives.”
Rediscovering Erin
As the months passed, something else began happening.
The programs that initially gave Erin places to go and people to see were helping her remember parts of herself that had been buried beneath years of teaching, raising a family, and, most recently, facing cancer.
“I remembered how much I love working with my hands. How much I enjoy crafting. How important it is to find stillness and mindfulness and have balance in your life.”
Those discoveries gave Erin the confidence to start imagining a different future.
During a trip to Nashville with a friend, she visited a hat bar where guests could design and personalize their own hats. The experience sparked an idea. After months of research, Erin took a leap and launched Ace High Hat Bar in Calgary, where she creates custom hand-shaped hats for clients.
It was the kind of leap she isn’t sure she would have taken before.
“Thanks to Wellspring, I felt aligned and empowered to take a chance and go looking for what would really make me happy.”
Today, Erin has built a new career that lets her design her work hours around her wellness and family. And Wellspring remains part of her life, as she continues participating in some of the programs that helped her find her way forward.
Looking back now, Erin can draw a line between the woman sitting alone in a darkened bedroom, paralyzed by what cancer might take from her, and the woman she is today.
For her, Wellspring helped bridge the distance between the two.
“The best thing about cancer was finding Wellspring. The programming and the people it brought into my life gave me the confidence to be brave and bold and make changes to make my life better,” Erin said.
“Now I’m happy, and I love what I do. Wellspring lit the spark that helped me get here.”
