January 30, 2012

Dana Bost has been teaching 7th and 8th graders at Grymes Memorial School for 17 years.

“I love working with this age group. I somehow feel like I understand them and I enjoy them. They make me laugh,” she said.

While using card games and interactive activities to help enhance her English lessons, Bost is also dealing with her own personal battle. A few months ago she was diagnosed with breast cancer. “It was hard at first, but I am much better at it now and I'm going through all my steps,” she said.

Bost is undergoing treatments like chemotherapy, surgery and radiation, which she's not hiding from her students. “One of them wrote me a long letter and they did say you are my hero," she recalled. "I think I'm helping them see how to be strong."

Her students couldn't agree more.

“I think her having cancer is kind of a lesson for all of us because she's a great example of a teacher. I think she really wants us to push through stuff and have hope like her,” said Colleen Mairs.

Bost says in a way her students have saved her life. They're the reason she wants to come to work even when she's not feeling her best. “I need to be creative and I need to be thinking and having a project and things to do. I don't want to sit home and think about having an illness. I don't want to be the illness,” she said.

Bost is proving that she isn't the illness. With her positive attitude and drive to beat the disease, she's putting one foot in front of the other and believing that she will be a breast cancer survivor.