Melissa Bravo recently learned the importance of stopping to smell the flowers in life.

No moment is too miniscule to cherish, and Bravo soaked it all in during an Aug. 28 girls volleyball practice at Discovery Canyon.

The squeak of sneakers on the court and the use of a white board to break down drills. Bravo has craved a return to this element since she rang that final bell.

Yes, that bell, the one to acknowledge her final chemotherapy treatment.

Bravo entered remission from stage two colon cancer on Aug. 1, returned to Discovery Canyon volleyball for tryouts on Aug. 12 and felt the ordeal was “just a chapter in my life, not the whole story.”

“With my last chemo treatment, I was just ready to get the heck out of there,” Bravo said. “It was a moment for me and my family and we were lucky to have them nearby. My sister was there, my mom was there, my mother- and father-in-law were there. My husband and two kids were there. … We were lucky to have everyone so close to be able to help throughout the school year and into the summer.”

Bravo didn’t name the proverbial chapter in her life, but “Jan. 15” could serve as a potential title.

That marked the paradigm shift in Bravo’s life.

She spent Martin Luther King Day at UCHealth for a colonoscopy and said the procedure started with laughter.

“The doctor was joking and said, ‘Why am I seeing you? You’re young and you’re healthy!’” Bravo said.

Marques Bravo, Melissa’s spouse, recalled the doctor returning with the results with a changed demeanor and less playful tone.

“He had a real serious look on his face,” Marques said. “Melissa and I looked at each other like, ‘Uh oh.’”

Bravo said the doctor found a tennis ball-sized tumor, but couldn’t pass a pediatric scope through it due to its size.

“They sent it to pathology and put a rush on it because they couldn’t move on until they did,” Bravo said. “That week, on a Friday, around 6 p.m., I got a call and they confirmed it was cancer.”

Bravo contacted Marques, who’s also the Discovery Canyon wrestling coach, and shared the news.

Marques took the call during opening night of the Colorado Springs Metro Wrestling Championships, which took place at Fountain-Fort Carson High School.

“She called and said it was colon cancer,” Marques said. “Not long after, I let the team know she’s going through surgery so I might be gone for a few days. I missed one or two days, but for the most part I was able to make it through the season. We felt the love and support from everyone around who helped us with this.”

Bravo still needed to learn the severity of the colon cancer and whether it had spread.

According to the American Cancer Society, the five-year survival rate for localized (stage two) colon cancer – meaning the cancer hasn’t spread to any lymph nodes – is 91 percent.

For regional (stage three) colon cancer, which means the cancer has spread outside of the colon and onto lymph nodes, survival rate drops to 73.

In distant cases (stage four), meaning the cancer has spread throughout the body to areas such as the liver, a lung or distant lymph nodes, the five-year survival rate drops to 13 percent.

“When I went to the surgeon and he saw the tumor, he bet my husband a box of donuts that it’d be stage three,” Bravo said.

Fortunately for Bravo, Marques won a box of donuts.

“I was considered stage two, which is great,” Bravo said. “Stage three means it’s in your lymph nodes and thankfully it wasn’t.”

Bravo had surgery Jan. 24 and completed her first of 12 rounds of chemotherapy at UCHealth on Feb. 27.

This meant she would miss March practices with players and coaches. For Bravo, who said she is “very type A,” this required patience.

“I’m very structured and detailed-oriented,” Bravo said. “Sometimes I get caught up in those things and that’s not always the big picture. I needed to find a softer perspective.”

During recovery, Bravo received support from friends, family and coaches – at Discovery Canyon and elsewhere – to ensure her and her family’s lives remained close to normal.

“Marques’ wrestling family stepped in and brought food. And my volleyball family stepped in and brought food and asked how they could help out,” Bravo said. “We had a new JV coach coming in and I had to ask him to run the open gym practices.”

That’s when many volleyball players learned of Bravo’s colon cancer, including Audrey Smullen.

Now a senior, Smullen called the news “devastating.” However, Smullen also realized if anyone could overcome cancer …

“It’s our coach, she’s one of the healthiest people I know,” Smullen said. “She’s also one of the mentally strongest people I know. … Everything in her life she takes one step at a time, and nothing seems like too much of a challenge for her.

“Cancer is always a concerning and stressful thing. But where she was at and how healthy she is, I knew she had a good chance of beating it.”

Bravo said her oncologist recommended 20 minutes of activity throughout rounds of chemotherapy treatments. But she felt strong enough to return to her haven – the gym.

Discovery Canyon strength and conditioning coach Sam Melendrez helped Bravo find sets and repetitions appropriate for someone in chemo.

That included three sets of 10 reps for exercises such as bench press, deadlifts and squats.

“Squatting didn’t bother anything,” Bravo said. “I love to lift on a regular basis. It’s an outlet and an important part of exercise. It felt good to be in the weight room. My first lift of the week was not always my best and sometimes a little bit harder to get through. But I kept going every other day and I kept adding weight and it felt fine.”

Marques said he loved watching Bravo progress each week. At first, seeing Bravo “not at 100 percent,” especially during early rounds of chemo, was difficult because, “I rarely see her that way.”

But as Bravo’s health improved after each treatment, Marques felt relieved.

“It’s inspiring,” Marques said. “She feels like a lot of people want her to talk about it more and for her that’s difficult because she has that on-to-the-next-thing mindset. … But I let her know that this was inspiring to me and, hopefully one day, to our two daughters, to show them that mom was dealt a bad hand, but she didn’t let it stop her.”

Prior to Bravo’s final treatment, Thunder volleyball players decorated her office with motivational messages on purple flower pedals cut from construction paper.

The phrases “Brave,” “You can do anything,” and “Ring the bell,” among a slew of others, remain in her office as a reminder of the final pages of her previous chapter.

It’s one of the few aspects from that time Bravo wishes to relive.

“They were the first ones to congratulate me on finishing that twelfth treatment,” she said. “They’ve been great. … This wasn’t just a journey by myself, it was for all of us. … It was a bell for all of us rather than just for me.”