She was well enough to start making plans again: A cancer survivor and entrepreneur

Ms. Banu Ozden is a computer scientist whose cancer was diagnosed in 2001. She said from the time she started dealing with the disease, she wanted to design a system that would make it easier for patients to keep track of their medical costs and also help them find errors in billing and reimbursement records.

In 2005, when teaching computer science at the University of Southern California, she was told that she again had cancer and that this time the disease had spread.

She took a leave of absence from her job and moved to New York so she could be treated at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Within a month of her diagnosis, she was feeling well enough to start making plans again.

Once again in the morass of medical bills, she knew she wanted to proceed with her company. She started Smart Medical Consumer with her own funds and investments from friends and family.

Advice: See if you can help those struggling with a disease you have learned how to face, as Banu is doing.

Read one of our cancer survivor entrepreneur stories, or read more from the NY Times article on October 25 by Marci Alboher.