Raising three young children is the last thing Mary Snell thought she’d be doing in her mid-60s. But it’s the role she found herself playing after her son and daughter-in-law ran into trouble with the law. For the past five years, Mary and her husband have had full custody of her grandchildren: 11-year-old Cory, 10-year-old Jasmine and 8-year-old Xavier. “I’ve raised the parents and now I’m raising their kids,” says Mary.

A week after Carla Kellum turned 15, she learned she had bone cancer. The discovery started with a fall down the stairs. “I passed it off as a misstep on the stairs, but it was actually the first sign of the cancer deteriorating my right femur bone,” shares Carla. “I thought of cancer as a disease that people get when they are older. Reality didn’t sink in until my treatment actually started. It was scary to me.” To prevent the risk of immobility, cancer reoccurrence, or even death--Carla’s parents made the difficult decision to have their daughter’s leg amputated in 2006.