The Sound of Defeating Cancer - KXNet - Bismarck/Minot/Williston/Dickinson

Cancer can be a scary and life changing word for families.

For one woman from McLaughlin South Dakota, her battle started one year ago.

She's been through radiation and surgery, and today she completes another step toward being cancer free.

<<"Last spring, right around this time I started having some pain in my side and stomach and didn't know what it was," Juliana Taken Alive said.

Juliana Taken Alive is a mother of five children, married to the love of her life of 22 years.

Last year her family heard the word, no family wants to hear.

"March 30th my gastrologist came in and told me that there was cancer," Juliana said.

Juliana first went through six weeks of radiation before having surgery in July.

For the last six months she's been making trips to the Infusion Center at Sanford Health, receiving chemotherapy.

"It's helped me, to appreciate everything that I have and the people I have supporting me, I'm just grateful," Juliana said.

This trip to the Infusion Center is Juliana's last trip, and on her way out she has this bell waiting for her.

"We have the bell setup to kind of celebrate the end of a person's chemo treatment," Nurse Practitioner, Sara Doll said.

Not only is Juliana done with her last session of Chemotherapy, she's also cancer free.

"Just to see that she beat cancer is exciting and good that she's still here and I'm so thankful she won and rang the bell," Summer Taken Alive said.

"She's a pretty strong woman, and we're proud of her and we all love her and excited to move forward," Crawford Taken Alive said.

Moving forward with a life without cancer.

"The day she told me, it was 10 o'clock in the morning on March 30th I remember, and I felt like the weight of the world was on my shoulders, and the first thing I thought was, am I going to die, am I going to die, is this going to kill me, and then now today it's like it's not going to kill me, it didn't kill me, I'm still here and I win," Juliana said.>>

When you think the story couldn't get any better, tomorrow, February 7th is the anniversary of Juliana and Crawford's very first date, 26 years ago.