In the cancer community, quality of life is an important measure, a gauge of one’s ability not just to survive but to thrive. The ways people respond to sometimes overwhelming challenges are complex and, often, awesome.

Dann Wonser and Genevieve de Renne started a romance dancing all night at a friend’s wedding, but it was their enduring love that sustained them through Dann’s journey with lung cancer over the past 14 years (“Love in a Time of Cancer”).

Yale University School of Medicine’s Seth Axelrod, PhD, an expert in a therapy that helps people experiencing deep emotional distress, learned to apply his skills on himself after he was diagnosed with bone cancer (“Radical Acceptance”).

Cancer researchers are responding to the challenges of a wily foe in awesome ways as well. Genomic testing, which seeks tumor-specific vulnerabilities, is rapidly expanding the potential of drugs to target many more cancers (“Meeting Your Match”). Scientific advances are also improving outcomes in lung cancer (Basics) and pain management (Your Team). For more advances, read Care and Treatment and News.

Blogger Adam Hayden, who has brain cancer, writes about walking his dog, doing the dishes and facing mortality in “Finding Myself in Illness.” Jamil Rivers, who has breast cancer, describes her journey as a Black woman to understand the disease and become an advocate in “A Metastatic Breast Cancer Diary.” Sculptor Shelley Kerr, who has bladder cancer, found new inspiration in her own miraculous treatment (“Warrior Artist”).

In these pages, you’ll also find tips for couples (How To), sources for emotional support (Resources) and soothing seasonal comforts (Good Stuff). How is your own quality of life? Please let us know by filling out the Reader Survey .