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I had to tell Dad, 'It will be okay and be positive; keep praying and have faith'. I have always known about cancer, but to be around someone who has it and to see what it does in such a short space of time was hard. It makes you think about your life, about what is important.

When I was 14, my dad came home one day and told us he had cancer. It was looking pretty bad. And I remember him saying how afraid he was that he hadn't gotten to do the things he wanted to do during his life. He had surgery and survived. And he's still alive today, thank God. But it made a big impact on me.

While this has been a private part of my family's life, it is now clear a media story will soon emerge. My father tragically ended his life while battling terminal cancer in 1979.

It was a fine cancer experience, as cancer experiences go.

My dad has had a rare form of leukemia since I was in about 7th grade. But they've come up with some amazing drugs since then and he's doing really well today.

In too many cases, the moms, the dads, the sisters and brothers of children with cancer must stand by a hospital bed and watch helplessly as this horrible disease consumes the life of an innocent child.

The thing with cancer is that it's usually the chemo rather than the disease itself that makes the patient feel so ill, particularly at the start.

Before I started chemotherapy treatments, I wrote down the best advice from doctors, family, friends, books, and survivors and created an 'Owner's Manual' to help me take care of myself. It would remind me that cancer is doable.

What I've learned from my own journey, and from my family's experience with cancer, is how important it is to stay positive and move forward. Not every day is going to be perfect; that's life. But staying positive is going to get you to the next day.

When a person has cancer, the whole family really suffers with her.