In your lifetime, if you're lucky enough, you may meet a memorable person like Ann Applewhite.

Her story would make a wonderful movie, but audiences might find it difficult to believe that this amazing young woman actually overcame all of the obstacles fate placed in her path. I can assure you that she did.

Ann was born in 1958, the second of three children of Mary and Harris Applewhite. The family lived in New York City, but soon moved to New Jersey.

Her early life was happy but relatively unremarkable until she was 14 years old, when the first of many cataclysmic events that shaped her life occurred. Ann was diagnosed with leukemia. Although one doctor predicted she had only months to live, Ann and her family never gave an inch to the terrible disease. Together they endured the frequent trips to New York for chemotherapy, Ann's hair loss, and all of the other awful side effects of leukemia. They never allowed themselves even to think that Ann might die.

She graduated from high school and enrolled in Fairleigh Dickinson University. Several more blows fell during her freshman year, when Ann contracted shingles and encephalitis. The cumulative effect of these afflictions and the leukemia treatment caused the lower half of her body to become paralyzed. Although she was confined to a wheelchair, she completed her studies at Fairleigh Dickinson and graduated with honors.

Ann would attempt anything. She decided to try out for the television show, "Wheel of Fortune." Alone, she got herself and her wheelchair onto an airplane to Los Angeles, flunked the entry test, and went home, undiscouraged.

Ann was determined to live independently. She took a research job with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and rented her own apartment. She coped with the myriad everyday problems like traffic, elevators, buses, and subways, that make New York City so difficult for wheelchair-bound persons living alone. Eventually she decided that instead of research, she wanted to take a more direct route to helping others, so she enrolled in Baylor College of Medicine.

She went on to become a physician assistant in Post, Texas, and later she helped provide medical care at an American Indian reservation in Oklahoma. She decided to buy a house, but an unscrupulous builder swindled her out of what little money she had.

Undaunted but homesick, Ann returned to New York City and went to work for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals. Though still confined to her wheelchair and in constant pain, she was determined to live as fully as she could.

In 1984, Ann became aware of Achilles International, which provides opportunities for physically challenged persons to participate in mainstream athletic events. Ann trained hard, and entered the 1985 New York Marathon. She finished, and as she wheeled herself triumphantly across the finish line, she knew she had just accomplished something that would forever inspire herself and others.

Ann often said, "I can do anything you can do. I just have to find another way to do it."

Then fate struck Ann yet again. She was taking prescription drugs to control her afflictions and her pain, and she became addicted. She couldn't work anymore. With help from Narcotics Anonymous and her family, she overcame her addiction and went back to her job.

She returned to work for years, but in November 2008, her pain-ravaged body finally gave out, and Ann Applewhite died. She was 50 years old. She was courageous, intelligent, generous, loving, and fiercely independent. In spite of everything, she maintained her sense of humor, and she never once said, "Why me?" Her life was heroic, a triumph over enormous adversity. She remains an inspiration to me and to everyone who knew her.

You may wonder how I know all about Ann. Her mother, Mary Davis Applewhite, is my sister.

Contact Pinehurst freelance writer Jim Davis at jdavis110@nc.rr.com.