Madison Billingsley's family had no history of breast cancer.
Madison even tested negative for the breast cancer gene.
But by the age of 22, she had lost her mother to a battle against the disease, and by the age of 24 was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer.
Madison was a freshman at Auburn University when her mother, Laurie, first began cancer treatments.
"It was hard in college -- working and studying and trying to take care of your mom all at the same time," Madison said.
"All of her surgeries seemed to fall during finals, so I was always studying for finals at the hospital."
As Madison continued to progress through classes at Auburn, her mother continued to fight against cancer.
"When she realized she wasn't going to live, [there were] two things she wanted to do.
"Attend her son's high school graduation -- which she got to do -- and live long enough to see Madison graduate from nursing school, which she didn't get to do," said Leslie Hamby, Laurie's older sister and Madison's aunt.
Three months before graduating in May 2011 with a bachelor of science in nursing,
Madison's mother passed away. Madison said she remembers the fortitude her mother showed as her battle came to an end.
"She was a very strong woman," Madison said.
"She put up a good fight right until the very end, now she's in a better place."
Two year's after her mother's death, Madison was working as a nurse at East Alabama Medical Center when cancer struck the Billingsley family again.
"I knew I was supposed to start getting mammograms at the age of 25 because my mother had it, but I luckily found the lump when I was 24, before I even had my first mammogram," Madison said.
"If I ever got it, I honestly thought it would be when I was 40, 50 maybe. Definitely not at 24."
After witnessing her mother's four and a half year battle, Madison chose an aggressive treatment with chemotherapy and a double mastectomy to combat her own cancer.
She is now able to look back on her mother's struggle against cancer through the lens of her own battle.
"Now I understand what all she was going through. Obviously, it makes me admire her even more," Madison said.
"She had always been the rock in our family. She never complained about anything, and I tried to use that philosophy in my struggles.
"It's not something you really understand until you go through it yourself."
Madison's battle against cancer hasn't been defined by surgeries or struggles, but by the gratitude for life she now has because of it.
"I view life as a gift now," Madison said.
"I'm not saying I didn't before, but people tend to get caught up in their lives. They tend to take things for granted.
"When something so life-altering like that happens to you, you learn to not take things for granted and view it as a gift and take as many chances as you can."
Madison has now been in remission since May 2013. Madison says its every cancer survivor's greatest fear that the cancer will return.
But in the end, cancer never posed a threat on Madison's life. Cancer showed her what life was about.
"People think you get cancer and it's the end of your life, but it's really just not the case," Madison said.
"In a lot of ways, my life didn't even start until I got cancer just because it made me look at life in a whole other way."
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