When doctors told Angela Fuller her cancer was terminal, she made a couple of important decisions: Fight to the very end, and celebrate her life.

One of the ways Fuller chose to celebrate her 41 years of life was by having a living memorial. Held last weekend at her home near Johnson Siding, the party gave Fuller's loved ones a chance to spend time with her and perhaps say goodbye. It gave Fuller a chance to embrace her life and offer comfort to those she may leave behind.

"Maybe it's selfishness on my part. Maybe I just need some closure before I go," she said. "But all along I've said I have the easy part. I go to a better place. … Everybody else has the really difficult part of going on with their lives."

Fuller was diagnosed with a cancer called adenocarcinoma in June 2006.

Adenocarcinoma usually develops in the lungs, breasts, prostate and other organs. Fuller's cancer, however, developed in her left sinus and proved to be particularly aggressive.

She underwent surgery at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., in July of 2006. The tumor had eaten away at her sinuses and skull, and

doctors replaced her skull with titanium.

After radiation and chemotherapy, Fuller lived what she hoped was a cancer-free life until a pain in her shoulder developed. For several months, tests and doctors assured Fuller that the pain was unrelated to the cancer. But by October 2007, further testing confirmed that the cancer had spread to her bones.

After traditional treatments failed to work, Fuller was put on a waiting list for a clinical trial at Mayo Clinic. She hopes to live long enough to enter the trial.

"Life has just turned upside down," she said. "It's not really the plan I had for my life."

Despite the change to her life's plan, Fuller said she made the decision very quickly to keep the "pity party" days to a minimum. Instead, she's forged ahead with an optimism that has awed her friends, families and doctors.

Fuller's primary physician, Kevin Weiland, said he's never seen anyone like Fuller in his 15 years of medical practice. "Her will to live … and the courage to die," he said.

When Fuller invited one of her doctors from Mayo to her living memorial, he e-mailed her back, writing, "Thank you for coming into my life and teaching me how to live."

Co-worker and friend Shirley L'Esperance is equally inspired by Fuller. "Her positive spirit is amazing," said L'Esperance. "She's had more impact on my life in the three years I've known her than people I've known all my life."

That's why L'Esperance wasn't at all surprised when Fuller told her about the living memorial. "I thought that's a great idea," L'Esperance said. "A living memorial tends to focus on the positive and is a celebration of her life."

Fuller first read about living memorials on the Internet, although they go by different names. "I call it a living memorial, but I don't know that there's a technical name for it," she said.

In some ways, living memorials are nothing more than a party: just a gathering of people who share stories, photographs and memories.

Fuller said she's been to funerals where people stand up and say things about the deceased. So often, they were things they should have said to the person in life.

"Say the things you need to say now," Fuller said. "Because when it's over, it's just over."

Fuller's husband Rick Berkholder agrees. "This is giving people the chance (to say good-bye)."

Just because Fuller celebrated with a living memorial last weekend doesn't mean she's giving up on her chances of a longer life. Fuller still hopes to get into the clinical trial and never gives up on the possibility that cures do happen.

"I hope we get to do this again in six years," she says of her memorial party. "I'm not going to give up until it takes me down."

If the cancer does end her life, Fuller thinks the living memorial was a perfect way to embrace the life she's had and to say goodbye to the people who have impacted that life.

"All I hope is that this makes it easier in the end for them," she said.

Contact Lynn Taylor Rick at 394-8414 or ltaylorrick@rapidcityjournal.com