Bill Schuette was in the best shape of his life. After retiring at age 51 from his job as a high school principal, he set out to “get healthy and stay healthy,” says the Versailles, Ohio, father of three.

After intensive training, he walked the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail, from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mount Katahdin, Maine. He led weeks-long bicycle tours around Ireland and the Greek Islands. He ran triathlons. He competed in the Senior Olympics. But 6 years into his health makeover, in 2006, his chest began to hurt when he was breathing hard.

In April 2007, Schuette, then 58, gathered his wife, Connie, his two adult sons, and daughter for a meeting with his oncologist. The doctor explained that Schuette had a form of lung cancer called adenocarcinoma. Thousands of tiny tumors peppered each lung. Surgery was impossible. Radiation couldn’t reach them all. And at best chemotherapy could contain them—for a while.

Over the next two years, Schuette took seven chemotherapy drugs. None stopped the cancer, and the side effects were hard to take. Schuette could no longer hike, bike, or swim. He couldn’t keep food down. “There were times I could hardly get out of bed,” he says. Early in 2009, his doctor told him he wouldn’t see another Christmas.

Illustration: Julien Roure