( CNN ) -- It 's never easy when you get that phone call , even when you 've known for years that it might be coming . But on Friday , I got the call that someone I loved had died . Just five days earlier , my friend Marci and I had been making plans for our kids to go trick-or-treating together , and now she 's gone . I ca n't write that Marci Smith lost her battle with brain cancer , because Marci hated that phrase . Her husband , Tim , thinks she just did n't like the concept of losing at anything . Actually , in my book , she beat cancer . Her disease was diagnosed when she was 43 , when her son Joshua was 3 years old . Her doctor told her that statistically speaking , she had three to six months to live . That was in February 2007 . She beat cancer not just in the length of the time she survived , but in how she lived these last 4Â½ years . As the cancer invaded Marci 's brain and the chemotherapy poisoned her body , her spirit remained clean . She never expressed anger to me that she got cancer at such a young age and with such a young child , even though she certainly would have been entitled to . It 's not that Marci sugar-coated her illness : Tim remembers she was scared when she got the diagnosis , and she talked to me and her other friends about the brain surgeries and the awful side effects of the chemo . But Marci lived full speed ahead until she could n't live anymore . She knew cancer would ultimately end her life , but she did n't let it ruin the life she had left . `` She was such a happy , positive person , '' Tim told me after her death . `` She just wanted to enjoy every minute she had left . She never wanted to talk about 'what happens if I die . ' `` Instead , Marci planned for life . She 'd always wanted to visit all 50 states , and so over the past four years , she and Tim and Joshua visited the states she had n't been to yet . She wanted to see Israel and Scotland , too , and the three of them took trips there . When a teenage family member needed her help , she took him into her home , since helping family and friends meant everything to her . Marci taught me so much about living , and so much about being a smart patient . She was one of the first people I wrote about when I started the Empowered Patient column shortly after her diagnosis , and our frequent discussions about doctors and hospitals and treatments and choices have informed my writing since . Marci was the ultimate empowered patient , as she diagnosed her own cancer . When her cancer was first diagnosed , doctors told Marci she had leiomyosarcoma , a particularly rare and aggressive form of cancer . A licensed practical nurse , Marci looked up the diagnosis online and called to tell me that something sounded strange -- she had the leiomyosarcoma only in her brain and nowhere else , and such leiomyosarcoma cases are so rare , they get written up in medical journals . Plus , people with leiomyosarcoma often have had diseases like HIV , or have had lots of radiation earlier in life . Marci had neither . Her oncologist wanted Marci to start chemo right away , but she refused . Instead , she and Tim flew to a hospital in Florida that specialized in sarcomas , where they confirmed she did n't have leiomyosarcoma , but rather a much more common type of tumor , a glioblastoma multiforme . If Marci had simply accepted her first diagnosis , she would have received the wrong treatment and most likely would have died quite quickly . She lived for 4Â½ years -- she lived to see her son 's seventh birthday -- because she was smart and she trusted her gut , the most important part of being an empowered patient . Marci was in her kitchen the last time I visited her , surrounded by Tim , Joshua , her mother , and aunts , uncles , cousins and friends . The weekends at her house were like that , as she sustained a community for herself , her husband and son . I 'd never seen a house so full of life in the face of death , but that 's because Marci embraced all that was good no matter what horrible things lay ahead .
Cohen was three of the seventh people featured in this column . The ultimate empowered patient , she diagnosed her own cancer . Marci Smith : She beat cancer in how she lived three to six months .