Billie Jo Johnstone, Lebanon

Date of Diagnosis: 1979 at age 34 Date of Death: 2003 at age 58

In 1994 Billie Jo wrote, "I took the cancer as a warning that there is no time like the present for doing things that I had been putting off until 'some day.' Though I didn't understand it at the time, the diagnosis told me to 'get a life' and, gradually, I did."