This is Tammy Johnston-Johns' 10th year to be involved in Relay For Life. She's stayed all night, walked with the band and done a lap in her pajamas.
But it's her first year to walk the survivors' lap.
Johns is having some trouble adjusting to the changes cancer has caused in her life.
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Tammy Johnston-Johns shows off the wigs she’s acquired since losing her hair during cancer treatment on Friday in her Howland home.
At 41, she's a single mother of two children. She's also the trauma coordinator at St. Joseph Health Center, as well as a former paramedic.
"The hardest part is I have given my whole life, and to sit back and let people do for me isn't easy," Johns said recently at her Howland home.
Johns has lung cancer - small cell carcinoma. But she calls the way it was diagnosed "bizarre."
On a vacation last year, she tried skimboarding, a sport similar to surfing that takes place near the shore. The next day, her back and hips hurt. But instead of going away like the muscle soreness she expected would, the pain continued. She was diagnosed with and treated for sciatica.
Then, in October, she was in a car accident, a hit from behind that totaled her vehicle. Another month later, and there was back pain. She tried the chiropractor, to no avail.
"I got to the point there was so much pain, I thought it can't be sciatica," Johns said.
She thought maybe a ruptured disc was the cause and scheduled a CT scan. It showed a small spot that could've been a calcification or maybe something that was there since birth.
The next test, though, came back "malignant disease, primary source unknown." Johns found out she had cancer in her lung - the formerly unknown primary site, both adrenal glands, a bone in her back and her hip bone.
"You could see it," said Jeanine Miller of the protruding tumor on her friend's hip.
"I was devastated," Johns said.
She was sent to the Ireland Cancer Center, where an array of films were taken.
"That's when people started to pray for me," Johns said. And she wonders if it's a power that already was working.
Her first tests in Warren showed a spot on the liver. When she went to Cleveland for more tests, the doctor didn't mention it. Naturally, she asked.
"There's nothing on your liver," she was told. She wonders: Was it the interpretation of the physician? A shadow on the film? Or the prayers?
Her mother, Kathy Clark, might have already made her choice on that one.
"We have people praying in California, Florida, all over the U.S.," she said.
Johns went through 10 bouts of radiation. When she began, she was in so much pain that she used a walker and could not put weight on her legs. By the fifth treatment, the walker was history and she was wanting to go back to work.
"She amazes me," Miller said.
"I love my job," Johns responds.
Johns is receiving chemotherapy. She gets it on a Monday, does OK on Tuesday, is "sick as a dog" on Thursday and Friday, and usually returns to work on Friday. She then waits about a month for the next treatment, hoping that her counts are high enough to continue.
The tumor on her chest has shrunk by 70 percent. The support she receives from friends and family, however, keeps growing.
"My friends alone," she said. "I wasn't real popular in high school - I don't know where they all came from."
Her mother helps with the children - Ethan, 10, and Kenley, 6. Miller has moved Johns body when she couldn't move it herself. One friend, who Johns said isn't known for being "lovey-dovey," stops in every day like clockwork. When needed, another friend, Rob, had the driveway cleared of snow by 6 a.m.
"The whole hospital has rallied together," she said, adding the sisters stop her and say they're praying for her.
She's received cards (she cries at every one). There have been fundraising benefits - a bus trip, spaghetti dinner, wine event - and just checks arriving in the mail.
Her Relay team this year is called "Tammy's Troops," and has a camouflage theme.
Her sister, Chrissy VanValien, is her rock, she says. They'll walk side by side in the survivor lap.
"Hopefully, this story will stress the goodness that is out there," Johns said.
And then there are the fun parts - really. Trips to Cleveland she sees as blessings because she gets one-on-one time with whoever drove her there, going out to eat or shopping.
Johns has several different wigs of different styles and colors. One is called her "burlesque." Her friend has added "bling" to the bandannas Johns wears at home, but this survivor wants to look professional, so she wears only wigs to work.
"Everyone that I work with knows I have cancer, so why not have fun?" she said.