Each year, more than 200,000 women in the United States are diagnosed with breast cancer, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Denise Connell of Leeds never expected to be one of them.

But, as a favorite saying of Denise’s goes, life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s learning how to dance in the rain.

In late 2008, Denise was getting excited to become a grandmother in the coming months. She accompanied her daughter to her prenatal medical appointments, and one day, her daughter “made” her get an appointment for her own check-up.

“I went and had the tests done in October, then two weeks later, they called me and told me they wanted me to come back in and have another intense mammogram,” Denise said. “Then you turn around you wait two more weeks and the tell you that you need to do a biopsy. Then, you wait two more weeks and you go in and talk to the surgeon.”

Finally, Denise found out there was a malignant tumor in her right breast, which had spread to her lymph nodes.

“It was scary, because it is the ‘cancer’ word,” Connell said. “Whenever you hear the word ‘cancer,’ you automatically think of death, because so many people that get cancer die.  You automatically think, ‘Oh my goodness, is my time here gone?’”

But since then, Denise has lived her life to prove that cancer is just a word.

“Cancer itself is a terrible disease. But it’s just that. People have all kinds of disease. It’s not something that I want to go through again, but I can honestly say that I thank the Lord that he brought me through it and for the things that I was able to learn through it.”

After the initial shock wore off, Denise came to terms with the situation, and prepared to fight the disease.  

“I was in a win-win situation, because I am a born-again Christian, and I know that if it was His will that I would go home. I’d be with him,” Denise said. “I don’t think anybody literally wants to take their last breath, but if you know, you have a peace.”

Denise underwent a mastectomy, as well as a yearlong course of chemotherapy treatment, six months of which ravaged her body and led her on a predictable schedule of nausea, depression and body aches each month.

“I’d take my treatment on Monday, and by Thursday, I’d be just zapped by the time we were ready to leave from work,” she said. “I’d come home and on Friday, I’d throw up all day and have diarrhea. Saturday, I’d have aches—my whole body ached all over. Then Sunday, I had depression all day. We have Mondays off, and by Tuesday, I’d be weak but ready to go back to work.  And I’d do it every 21 days.”

The side effects were draining for Denise, but she kept working through her treatment, and relied on her family, friends and faith for support.

“A lot of times, it would be so easy to just give up and sit in this chair,” Denise said. “You want to get up, and your brain says you can walk across the room, but your body says no. It’d be so easy to surrender to the devil and give up and stay in this chair, but I just said, ‘Lord, you’re in control, you’re going to get us through it.’”

Instead of doting on the fact that she had cancer, Denise enjoyed her life and her time with her family, despite the circumstances.

When Denise’s hair started falling out, she shaved it into a mohawk and dyed the tips of her blonde locks different colors, just for fun.

“We tried to do things that we could to make laughter out of the situation, instead of just gloom and doom the whole time,” she said. “You can have fun and be positive in the times that are some of the scariest. It’s a choice you make.”

Her infant granddaughter, whose impending birth caused Denise to get her check-up in the first place, also brought a lot of joy during the rough times.

“God sent her at just the right time. No matter how badly I felt, when I saw her, I felt better,” Denise said.

Denise’s chemotherapy was reduced from three medicines to one after six months, and by January 2010, she had completed her course of treatment.

Today, Denise is cancer free and feeling wonderful, she said. Still, she feels like she’s gained a lot for the experience, and thanks God for the lessons taught her along the way.

“I think I have more passion for people that are homebound, people that have nobody or it seems like they’re at their road’s end,” she said. “It’s real easy for people that have energy and are able to get up and go and do things to go, they don’t understand why the people that are down are not active. … A lot of times, we’re quick to down people when it’s only through the grace of God that we’re not in their shoes.”