Before and after: Athlete learned to live — while dying of cancer

She asked the other girls about him, and they said stay away. He was "a player" (a lady's man) and he was vain. "So I snagged him!" she says, laughing.

After getting to know him and falling for him, Carol decided the girls' initial assessment was, well, right.

"He was really vain," she says now, laughing again. "He was very particular about how he looked."

He shaved his body, made sure his flattop was just so, honed his tan at the pool or the tanning booth.

"He had a good personality," Carol explains. "We were laughing and joking all the time. And he was strong in his beliefs. He wasn't afraid to stand up for what he believed."

They broke up once because he said track was No. 1 and a serious relationship was a distraction. When she rejected his offers for friendship — "I already have enough friends," she told him — he rekindled the romance. They married in 1988. She was 19, he was 23.

Carol — pretty, outgoing, humorous, quick to laugh — would prove to be the perfect mate for the rough times ahead. She was wrong about one thing, though: "We were friends," she says.

He finished his degrees in math and physical education, accepted a coaching position at Mountain View High in Orem and continued to train until reality set in during his trip to Puerto Rico. After returning to the United States, he called the school superintendent in Afton and, as luck would have it, the school had one opening, and it required someone with a degree in math and P.E. Just like that, he had a job in the town where he had summered as a youth, living with his grandparents and fishing the local streams.

"Living in Star Valley was his other dream," says Carol.

They started a family. They had two children, Ashli (now 7) and Jaxson (5). Life was good. He fished, taught and coached at the high school, continued to exercise intensely, and raised a family.

Just wanted to let everyone know that David was in the hospital recently. Wednesday, he was really confused and trying to get out of bed. He actually fell out of bed while I was out of the bedroom. Miraculously, he didn't get hurt or pull any of his many tubes out. A few hours later, he had a seizure so I called for an ambulance to come. He had another seizure in the ambulance. . . . He was released from the hospital Friday and is doing fine.

He is pretty sedated and sleeps. Thanks so much for everyone's prayers. I know that is what is keeping us going. — Carol

After the cancer struck, he continued to teach school for a couple of years until he could no longer do it.