BLOOMINGTON - Debbie Nelson is a woman with a simple but profound message:

"Don't wait until the end of your life to live your 'bucket list.' "

Nelson, 50, of Bloomington understands the significance of her message. In her ninth year of battling cancer, the former social service program director is awaiting her second stem cell transplant.

She is focusing on preparing herself for the transplant, as well as sharing her message.

"Everybody's got these dreams," she observed. "Why do we wait until it's almost too late to do something about them?"

While Nelson has been inspired by Randy Pausch's book, "The Last Lecture," and the movie "The Bucket List," starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman, she's prioritized her entire life.

When recently considering what she still wanted to accomplish, she discovered that she was living her dreams, though she still had more she wanted to do. She developed her own bucket list.

Her list is in her head, not on paper, and she admits it's evolving.

"Everyone has a bucket list," Nelson said. "They just don't call it that."

People who know Nelson have connected with her message to consider your dreams and live them.

"That's some of the best advice you can give people," said her chiropractor, Dr. Cathy Schimelpfenig. "We always live like there are a zillion tomorrows. But we don't know what'll happen."

Nelson grew up on a farm in western Illinois and moved to Bloomington in 1981.

She wanted a career in which she would help people, so she chose social services. Six years ago, she married Narlyn Nelson.

She had been healthy her entire life, but just before Christmas 1999, Nelson felt a lump under her left armpit.

"It was a very nonaggressive form of lymphoma," a cancer of the lymph modes, she said. "I learned two things: It would not grow fast, but it would never go away."

One item she read said the maximum life expectancy for someone with her diagnosis was nine to 10 years.

"I thought, 'I'm 41 years old, and I won't live past 50.' "

Her response changed when she met her oncologist, Dr. John Migas.

"He was upbeat and said, 'It's nonaggressive. We don't have to fight this right now. Let's watch and wait.'

"That helped to calm me down a little bit."

By May 2000, however, the cancer had grown enough that Migas decided to put Nelson on a pill form of chemotherapy.

A year later, she wasn't feeling well, and Migas discovered the cancer had grown again. So he ramped up Nelson's treatment to chemotherapy by infusion.

Her cancer went into remission for a year and a half, when she got sick again. She had four more rounds of chemotherapy, the most recent one from February to June 2007.

In July 2007, the tumors returned rapidly.

A biopsy determined that the cancer has transformed to a more aggressive form of lymphoma. She needed a stem cell transplant.

"That news was harder for me to handle," she recalled.

Nelson went to Northwestern Medical Center in Chicago, where she got three rounds of 24/7 chemo to prepare her body for the stem cell transplant. She got sick, tired and lost her hair.

Her stem cells were harvested and cleaned, and her good ones were injected back into her body after another round of chemotherapy Dec. 6. "They referred to that as my new birthday," Nelson recalled.

Nelson considered her bucket list and what she still wanted to do. As a fan of Paula Deen's cooking shows, Nelson wanted to go to The Lady & Sons, Deen's restaurant in Savannah, Ga. She and Narlyn went there in March on the way back from Florida.

In June, she got sick again. Test results showed the tumors were growing back.

Nelson has returned to Northwestern for two more rounds of 24/7 chemotherapy. A third round is scheduled for late September, and doctors hope to transplant a donor's stem cells into Nelson in October.

"As long as I have hope, I'm going to keep fighting."

As she awaits her next treatment, she's working down her list. Two weeks ago, she drove a Mini Cooper, the British answer to the Volkswagen Beetle.

The next three things on her list are to survive her second stem cell transplant, to go with Narlyn on a Scandinavian cruise and to help organize a foundation that helps dying people realize dreams on their bucket list.

But Nelson hopes that everyone develops his or her own list and shares it with a loved one.

"People say they will go a Caribbean cruise on their 25th anniversary, but if you have the means and ability to make it happen, do it now," she said."People put those things off because they're busy. But you need to take time for yourself. You never know what may happen."

pswiech@pantagraph.com

One checked off the list

For several years, Debbie Nelson wanted a Mini Cooper, the little British car.

"I tend to like those cute little cars. But my practical husband said, 'Absolutely not!' " Nelson said with a laugh.

So she decided the next best thing would be to drive someone else's Mini Cooper.

Two weeks ago, she told her chiropractor, Dr. Cathy Schimelpfenig, at Back to Health in Normal about her goal.

Schimelpfenig called a neighbor, Susan Eckert Dessa of Normal, who co-owns a 2003 Mini Cooper with her daughter, Kate, and shared Nelson's wish.

"My first reaction was 'Why not?' " Dessa recalled. "Why not do something good? Why not make someone happy? I was very touched. It was a no-brainer."

Dessa delivered the car to Schimelpfenig's office three days later.

"I was so excited," Nelson said. "I was like a kid in a candy store."

With Schimelpfenig as the passenger in the front and Nelson's husband in back, Debbie Nelson drove the Mini Cooper to a couple of friends' homes.

"It was fun," she said.