"not the kind of cancer that kills anyone"

That's what she used to say, at least before she got meningitis that led to her falling into a coma (and which didn't kill her either!)

I remember being worried about having two parents that both had chronic diseases - cancer and diabetes -- which seemed like they could worsen at any time, but apparently were not going to, at least for the near future.

I didn't seem to treat her differently though - now I wish that I had somehow been able to talk to her about a lot of things, but I think she wanted us to have her functioning as a support for us as an actual mom (without worrying about her) for as long as possible.

She had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma - here's the LLS page about the disease. Looking at this I think she must have had the slow-growing version, since she was diagnosed in the early 80s and survived until 1990.

As of 2007, an estimated 544,266 people will be living with lymphoma (active disease or in remission).