Imagine fighting a battle for your life.

This battle consists of regular journeys to the hospital for surgeries, radiation, and chemotherapy. It is weekly checkups and doctors’ visits and, most of all, it is the fear of waking up every day knowing it could be your last.

You are battling cancer.

One thing for certain, though, is that you are not alone.

The number of people living beyond a cancer diagnosis reached nearly 14.5 million in 2014 and is expected to rise to almost 19 million by 2024, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Included in these statistics are Mrs. Brandi Schmidt, physical science teacher, and Miss Chelsea Moore, daughter of Assistant Principal Matt Moore.

Here are their stories.

Mrs. Brandi Schmidt

Schmidt was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Her first diagnosis was in November 2015, and after winning that battle once, she had a war to face again after coming out of remission in January 2016.

Schmidt has a husband and two children, 11-year-old Ella and 8-year-old Drew.

Coping with this diseases has not been easy for Schmidt or her loved ones.

She has faced a roller coaster of feelings and emotions after being diagnosed.

“When I was going through chemotherapy I did not feel well physically. I was very sick and had a lot of nausea,” Schmidt said. “I would start to feel normal just in time to get my next treatment.

“During radiation I was very tired. I did not have a lot of energy and needed to take a lot of naps.”

It was not only a physical hardship. Mentally, Schmidt had to find strength.

“Some days were very tough. It took all that I had to stay strong,” Schmidt said. “Not feeling well day after day wore on me.

“It was tough not being able to do the things for my family that I was used to doing. However, some days, I felt very mentally tough. I felt very accomplished kicking cancer’s butt.”

Being a mom of two young ones, Schmidt said explaining a disease like cancer was not a simple matter.

“I do not think they fully understand the severity of the disease,” Schmidt said. “During my process, we always told them the doctors were doing all they could to keep me healthy and get me healthy is what they did.”

Ella was constantly worried about her mother and tried to be with her as much as possible.

“When I first started chemo treatments my daughter would call home from school with stomach aches. I think this was her way of saying she wanted to make sure Mom was OK,” Schmidt said.

Her first fight with cancer included two surgeries.

Schmidt’s oncologist, which is a doctor who specializes in treating cancer patients, told her this would give her a 98 percent chance that the cancer would not come back.

When she was faced with a recurrence, Schmidt had a harder fight for her life ahead of her.

“For the recurrence, I had a surgery, 16 rounds of chemotherapy, and seven weeks of radiation. I am also now on medicine to help another recurrence for a minimum of five years,” she said.

Between her diagnoses, she had consistent CT scans, MRIs, biopsies, and bone scans to check for any tumor growth.

Schmidt, being the person she is, found positives in the struggle, though.

“It was hard for my family to watch me have to go through cancer treatments, but it has also made us closer and truly appreciate each other in a deeper sense,” Schmidt said. “We always say cancer was one of the worst, but yet best things that has ever happened to our family.”

She believes she is blessed, although she battled breast cancer more than once.

“I am a lucky one. Even though I have had cancer twice, I had a treatable cancer,” Schmidt said. “Some people are not so fortunate.”

Miss Chelsea Moore

In 2007, at age 13, Miss Chelsea Moore was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma — a rare form of childhood bone cancer.

With only a 56 percent survival rate, Chelsea beat the odds after 55 weeks of chemo. At age 15, she was cancer free and has remained cancer free for the last six years.

Her journey took her up a mountain that not just any person could climb.

Because talking about her cancer is so emotional, Chelsea did not want to talk about it. But she did allow her father, Mr. Matt Moore, to talk in her place about her battle.

Moore believes the cancer weighed hard on his daughter in a mental and physical manner.

“As a 13-year-old child she had to face the possibility of not surviving,” Moore said.

The school environment made her journey difficult too.

“Academically she missed her entire eighth-grade school year and almost a year of high school,” Moore said. “It affected her self-confidence and self-esteem by making her have to grow quicker than an average middle school student.

“She lost all her hair and was constantly isolated due to her immune system being suppressed.  She had (and still) has a condition that has been called chemo brain. It still affects her to this day.”

In addition, Chelsea also had limb salvage surgery because of the tumor’s damage.

“The pediatric orthopedic surgeons at Mott’s Children’s Hospital at the University of Michigan removed the entire (knee) joint and replaced it with a titanium replacement,” Moore said. “The new knee joint was hammered into the core of her femur and coupled around her left tibia approximately halfway down her shin bone.”

Chelsea still has a reminder of the surgery every day.

“She has extensive scarring, loss of tissue, muscle, and nerve damage to her leg,” Moore said. “The other option to remove the tumor was to amputate her left leg above the knee.  Chelsea chose the limb salvage surgery.”

His daughter’s suffering had a huge effect on their family.

Moore often asked, “Why my child?”

He was scared, helpless, and confused for his daughter.

“As a father you always want your children to be protected and perfect in every way — both physically and emotionally.  And I couldn’t do that,” Moore said. “In most ways, it made me feel helpless to control what was happening.

“When your daughter goes through cancer you put your child’s life in the hands of the medical professionals and God.”

Chelsea’s sisters, Charlotte and Claudia, who were 7 and 6 at the time, respectively, had to experience the emotional roller coaster as well.

They never left her side as they watched her go through treatment.

Chelsea’s mother was a registered nurse, and she took care of most of Chelsea’s medical needs at the time.

Moore thanks his daughter for giving him strength when they both needed it most.

“When we cried, she stayed strong. When I was sad, she made me smile. When she was in pain or scared, she asked me to hold her and tell her it was going to be OK,” Moore said. “Looking back, she made it through cancer because she wasn’t going to let it beat her.

“During the entire ordeal Chelsea was the strongest and bravest of us all (Mom and Dad),” Moore said.

Today she still has chronic leg pain and nerve damage. In addition, her left leg is now over an inch shorter than her right leg because her left leg cannot grow longer due to her surgery.

Moore said the thought that cancer could return is always on their minds, but he also said Chelsea is a strong woman who is positive.

“Her biggest worry is that the cancer will return, but Chelsea remains hopeful,” Moore said.