Taylor Bell wasn’t your average college student. The small town girl from Wilmington, N.C., signed with East Carolina University to play Division I soccer, and majored in political science – all while finding time to make new friends.

At 21 years old, she also wasn’t your average lung cancer patient.

Lung cancer kills as many people as the four top cancers combined: breast, colon, pancreatic and prostate. It is unlike any other cancer because of the stigma it carries. When most people think of lung cancer, they think of smoking-and a cancer that “could have been prevented.”

But Bell has never smoked a cigarette in her life.

Bell’s fight with lung cancer began freshman year. Although she trained the same as her teammates, she couldn’t keep up physically, and she had tingling and numbness in her toes. Feeling confused and burned out, she made the difficult decision to leave the team.

“I was really tired, but thought it was just being in college and it was normal, you know, studying, class, friends. But something wasn’t adding up,” she said.