Best Self Atlanta | Jen Hidinger: Turning heartbreak into hope

When you are young and in love and have your entire lives ahead of you, you don’t expect your marriage vows—for better, for worse, in sickness and in health—to be tested for a very long time.

Fate was not so kind to Jen Hidinger and her husband, Ryan. On December 21, 2012—the day ancient Mayans predicted the world would end—he was delivered a diagnosis that was the end of their world as they knew it. The diagnosis? Gallbladder cancer. Stage 4. Ryan was 35. Jen? Only 30. The couple had been married seven years and together since Jen was 17.