Ever since she was diagnosed with a form of aggressive breast cancer six years ago, Tara Shuman has channeled her abundant energy and optimism into getting through and beyond her cancer, and also on doing everything possible to help others facing it. "I try to do for others what others have done for me," says Shuman. "The further I get from treatment, the luckier I feel, because I know life can change in an instant."

"When you face an obstacle, you have two choices," says Deb Shea, 50. "You can either pout and say you can’t do it, or you can push yourself to keep going and conquer it, having a cry when necessary. That's what I've been doing all my life." Shea faced a mammoth hurdle in 1987, when she was 18. Shortly after her high school graduation, she was diagnosed with an oligodendroglioma – a rare, slow-growing tumor that starts in the supportive, or glial, tissue of the brain.