Karen Spengler has been fighting cancer for 10 long years. Cancer's taken a lot out of her--a kidney, part of her leg bone, her hair, which she's lost nine times--but it hasn't taken her spirit, or her love of a good mystery.

Her Story is this: The owner of a Kansas City bookstore specializing in suspense novels, called I love A Mystery, Spengler also runs a support group for breast cancer survivors, called Turning Point. And though probably no other member of the group has, like Spengler, undergone treatment almost continuously for a decade, she's the backbone and the energetic force in the group.

She credits life-saving drugs to her survival against all odds, but there's another important aspect to her battle with cancer -- her positive attitude. Spengler considers herself lucky when most others would see the opposite.

TIME magazine has faithfully followed the issues defining cancer. The topic has made the covers of many issues, and it receives plentiful press on the pages in between. Stories spotlight an array of different cancers, address research and new developments, and offer personal glimpses into the lives of both everyday survivors and those with celebrity status. A look into the archives of TIME magazine -- seven specific issues -- illustrates a proven commitment to the cancer cause. And it proves the mystery of cancer is much the same today as it was many years ago.

Some mechanism has been at work in my body for the past month, some sort of filter that has somehow warded off the crippling panic that typically overcomes me during health scares. It's the panic that allows me to turn a simple cough into a symptom of lung cancer, a stomach pain into a sign of ovarian cancer. It's the curse of surviving cancer, I guess -- the continual worry that the disease is coming back, that it is going to strike someone dear to me.

Yet cancer never entered my mind when my husband and I began noticing our three-year-old Danny's strange eye movements, the strikingly odd manner in which one eye rolls upward when he gazes toward the ceiling -- this is normal -- while the other only crosses -- this is not normal. Surprisingly, I was not overly worried about this and was sure it was something that with glasses or eye exercises could be fixed. Never did I fear cancer.

We started with our pediatrician who quickly knew this issue was out of his league. I was calm. He moved us on to a pediatric eye specialist who was stumped by these eye movements that are typically congenital and occur much earlier in life. If not congenital, it must be something acquired, this doctor told us. He looked around a bit at Danny's eyes, dilated his pupils, and tested his vision. He determined his eyesight is perfect. And his gaze is a complete mystery. He ordered an MRI.

Still I was okay -- until my husband shared one evening with me that he was worried about a tumor. Why I hadn't yet obsessed about this is its own mystery, for which I am thankful. It allowed me to function for a short time independent of fear and anxiety and only a short time ago did I let panic seep into my consciousness.

When I scheduled the MRI for Danny and was told it was an urgent case that must be scheduled quickly, my stomach sank. When the doctor who would read the MRI met with us this morning to talk about this diagnostic procedure, he shared that a mass is what they would be looking for. I'm not sure how for all these weeks I missed this opportunity to get all worked up. But I did. And I got to act like a normal worried mother, not an over-the-top this must be cancer obsessed mother. It felt good.

And it felt good when the doctor read the MRI right in front of us this morning, sharing that there is no mass. He was not able to share what is causing this mystery eye condition that still must be investigated, but he assured us it's nothing serious, nothing life-threatening, nothing like cancer.

Perhaps the fact that my handful of recent health scares have not resulted in malignancies is allowing me to cool my guns a bit, to relax, to realize that not everything comes with a worst-case-scenario result. So maybe -- just maybe -- I am approaching some normalcy in my life, two years after my own worst-case-scenario sent me on the most terrifying ride of my life.

I like to read. I just don't find much time to do it -- with two kids, two jobs, an unpredictable exercise schedule, endless medical appointments, and all the other craziness that accompanies life. I would like to find more time for books -- books a bit more complex than the one I found time to read at bedtime tonight about a frog and a toad who spend their days flying kites and enjoying picnics together. I would like to read books that capture relationships and life experiences and a bit of mystery too.

The last book I read -- The Shop on Blossom Street -- is the kind of book I like. It is easy to read and captivating and inspiring and comforting. It is the kind of book I want to keep reading -- long after I have to put it down to tend to distractions. Perhaps it's the thread of cancer woven into the storyline of this book that kept me wanting more.

The Shop on Blossom Street -- by Debbie Macomber -- follows four women who are all seeking change in their lives. The lead character opens a yarn shop, years after a cancer diagnosis and with the intention of moving forward despite an uncertain future. She hosts knitting classes and forms relationships with three other women in search of brighter days.

Character Lydia Hoffman -- the cancer survivor -- overcomes obstacles and challenges and even another cancer scare. She finds friendship and love and all sorts of unexpected discoveries. She even graces the pages of a second book -- A Good Yarn -- that follows her continued life journeys.

I have the book A Good Yarn. It's on my bookshelf. And I can't wait to read it. I just can't find the time.

Just before my chemotherapy for breast cancer started -- when I was fantastically frightened by the toxic drugs that were about to drip into my veins -- I was told by doctors, nurses, survivors, friends that I would be just fine. I was young and strong and tough. I would easily tolerate the beating my body was about to take. This is what I was told and actually came to believe myself. I had no other choice really than to approach chemotherapy with a fighter mentality. And so I did. And I did pretty well for my first three doses of Adriamycin and Cytoxan -- given every two weeks instead of three in a dose-dense fashion -- followed by one injection of Neulasta 24 hours later to maintain normal blood counts. And then something happened. And I did not end up tolerating the chemotherapy my gut told me was a scary endeavor.

The topic of my hair is often the subject of conversation -- and is a constant reminder that this brown curly hair I have covering my head is nothing like the straight blond hair I was born with, grew up with, was known for. Because my little boys have white blond hair, I am consistently asked by strangers, "Where did your boys get that blond hair?" "From me," is what I want to say because it's the truth -- but that would make no sense to anyone who does not know me, anyone who does not know that my hair -- that once looked much like my boys' hair -- was lost to chemotherapy and returned shockingly different. So sometimes I just chuckle in wonder with these strangers who may not expect an answer anyway. Or I tell them the story -- if they seem to really want in on the details of the mystery. Most people are surprised that my hair grew back like it did. I am not surprised -- I was warned that it might happen -- although it is still a startling discovery each time I look in the mirror, each time I look back at photos, each time I see gray hairs emerging through my dark hair -- gray that only slightly showed up in the midst of my blond locks.

The memory of my blond hair keeps popping up. My husband told me the other day that he had a dream about me -- I was in a restaurant, at a table, by myself. He was walking toward me. And I had blond hair. The rest of the dream is insignificant. The blond hair is significant. And the other day, I pulled my brush out of my purse. It hasn't been used in more than a year -- because I don't brush my curls at all -- and at the base of the brush, wound around the bristles, were long blond strands of hair. My blond hair. My old hair. The same hair I showed my friend who visited from Ohio last week -- the hair that was once on my head, was cut off in preparation of the great fallout, and is now kept in a ziplock bag.

I like my brown hair. I like my curls. But I miss my blond hair. I am sad that I no longer match my children, that I don't look like the bride in my wedding photo, that I will attend my 20-year high school reunion in two years and will wear a photo name tag that looks nothing like me. I like the familiar -- which is why I never wanted to show my bald head, why I covered my head with blond wigs and hats to keep my appearance as close to normal as possible. And then in a strange turn of events, my hair grew back in an unfamiliar fashion -- and somehow the question, "I see where your boys get that blond hair" flip-flopped into "Where did your boys get that blond hair?" It is all still new to me. I know one day it will become familiar and normal and not such a big deal. Some day. I hope.

When Denise Ashford was 14 weeks pregnant, a fetal ultrasound scan revealed signs of a tumor in her unborn child. Her child had cancer. The young mother, only 19 years old at the time, was counseled on having an abortion. The cancer her baby had was neuroblastoma, a cancer that forms in nerve tissue of the adrenal gland, neck, chest, or spinal cord. Ashford, and the father Peter Thomas, refused to consider aborting the baby -- they said they would hang on for a miracle.

Each week, tests were done to watch how the unborn baby's tumor was growing. Within weeks, the tumor had begun to shrink.

"The doctors told us that sometimes in very small children this type of tumor can shrink over time. But then over the next four weeks, we were given some even more unbelievable news -- the tumor had disappeared altogether," stated Ashford.

Kiah Thomas came into this world at 6 pounds 1 ounce, and celebrates her fifth birthday as a happy healthy child. At the time of her birth, doctors said it was very rare for cancer to be detected in a baby before birth and then for it to disappear. But it happens. Called spontaneous remission, regression or miracles, stories of cancer patients defying the greatest of odds or having cancer suddenly disappear have always been told, as anecdotal evidence of mysteries we do not fully understand or have yet to seriously study.

For more information about spontaneous remission, the Institute of Noetic Sciences has compiled the largest database of medically reported cases of spontaneous remission in the world by reviewing over 3,500 references, from more than 800 journals in 20 languages, as a step towards expanding our knowledge and understanding of a real phenomenon that occurs, and yet, no one can explain.

It is not yet clear how -- or if -- this will affect American women but a piece of the breast cancer puzzle has been located for Icelandic women. Scientists reported this week that women with a bad gene that raises their risk of breast cancer were almost certain to develop the disease if they also had a mutation of second gene. This gene -- BARD1 -- seems to add a large risk for these women.

Two genes -- BRCA1 and BRCA2 -- were discovered 10 years ago and account for 10-15 percent of total breast cancer cases. Scientists have been searching for other genes that act alone or with these two genes to raise the risk for breast cancer. BARD1 appears to be one of the genes they were looking for.  Women with a BARD1 mutation and also a BRCA2 mutation -- the  most common in Iceland -- have a 50 percent increase in risk. In the United States, BRCA1 is most common so the puzzle is not quite the same. So for the 213,000 American cases of breast cancer that will emerge this year -- making it the most common major cancer in women and the second leading cause of deaths in women -- it is uncertain if BARD1 will be significant. But the discovery of this gene will help unravel the mystery of breast cancer -- and that is a step in the right direction for sure.

Quick autopsies -- or rapid organ donation -- may steer scientists in the direction of better diagnosing and treating the most lethal of cancers. Some 33,700 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year -- and 32,300 will die. There is no early detection test for this disease and early symptoms are vague and may be mistaken for health concerns like indigestion. By the time the classic symptoms -- jaundice and itching -- surface, the cancer has typically spread and patients have only months to live. Rapid autopsies have been used before -- for Alzheimer's and prostate cancer -- but this a first in the study of pancreatic cancer and it just may lead to the discovery of what makes this cancer so aggressive and so deadly.