What do you do when — after planning your life and working hard to achieve your dreams — your plans are interrupted by cancer?

One spring day in 2012, Janice woke up with a horrible headache. Because her mom had had a brain aneurysm at a young age, Janice paid attention and called her husband. By dinnertime that day, she was coming out of brain surgery.

I’m not a tanning guy, but my day-to-day job is all outside. Leading up to my diagnosis, I never wore sunscreen. The biggest thing I learned throughout all of this is to not wait.

“My first thought was that the news wasn’t real. I remember thinking there was no way I could have cancer. It doesn’t run in my family and everyone told me I’m too young,” says Racine.

Most would not count cancer as a blessing, but 61-year-old Mike Paradowski considers his diagnosis of head and neck cancer as one of the best things that has ever happened to him.

It made me cry when Brendan told me why he wanted to go Bald. He knows how important it is. He’s only eight and knows how important it is to find cancer cures.

Twelve-year-old Emmett is big into hockey. He started skating when he was 4 and playing when he was 6. He had hockey hair. He skateboarded. He was outside playing sports every minute he could. Then when he was 10, he started to feel lightheaded and fatigued.

The advice I would give to other people going through cancer at my age is to never give up. Find something that can symbolize your journey and push you to keep fighting.

A cancer survivor reflects on his decades-long experience with cancer and shares his secret to moving forward.