Anita Cochrane believed it was easier to fight cancer than to give in to it.

And in the nine years she lived with the disease, she achieved more than many people manage in a lifetime.

“Some people die from cancer but she was very much living with it,” said her husband Mike, 37. “She was very determined.”

So determined, in fact, that she played lead on B.C.’s mixed curling team at the Canadian championships in Iqaluit in 2008.

And, when she became too ill to curl competitively, she coached.

Cochrane took two Lower Mainland teams to the provincial finals in 2009 and coached the Australian senior men’s team to a bronze medal at the 2010 world championships in Russia.

“We never knew where she found the strength to do that,” said her mother, Mona Bassett. “She didn’t let the illness stop her. She said it was easier to fight than to give up.”

Anita Lynn Cochrane was born in Jonquiere, Que., on June 15, 1971 and died in Burnaby, aged 39, on Oct. 5.

Her family moved first to Trail and then to Saskatoon, where Cochrane was a high school cheerleader, played baseball and figure skated until Grade 10 when, at five feet ten inches, she thought she’d grown too tall.

She tried her hand as an engineering student at the University of Saskatchewan before switching to a commerce degree.

She moved to Prince George to article as a chartered accountant and that’s where she met her future husband.

Mike also had a commerce degree and had a contract as a computer-software consultant at KPMG.

“I remember the first day I worked there, I thought, ‘I can’t believe I’m working at an accounting firm,’” he said. “And then I met Anita and I thought, ‘Well, it’s not going to be too bad.’ She just had a very beautiful smile and a very warm presence about her.”

It took him a few months to get up the nerve to ask her out on a date but Mike and Anita started going steady and married in 2001, about three years after they’d met.

For their honeymoon, they spent four months cycling across Canada.

“That was Anita’s idea,” remembered Mike at the couple’s Champlain Heights townhouse. “I had a job in Vancouver and Anita was finishing off her articling. When we were moving her down here, we saw a couple of cyclists on the side of the road, between Prince George and Vancouver.

“Anita said, “I’d like to do that. Let’s bike across Canada,’ and I thought, ‘Yeah, okay,’ not thinking she would follow up.”

They made it to Cape Spear, N.L., and watched the sun rise from North America’s most eastern point.

It was the day they got to Newfoundland that Cochrane discovered a lump in her breast.

“Because she was only just 31, they didn’t think there was much chance that this lump could be breast cancer,” said Mike. “It turned out it was and it happens to a lot of women in their early 30s.”

Cochrane joined the Abreast in a Boat dragon boat team and started doing The Weekend to End Breast Cancer walks.

She founded team LiveStrong, inspired by cyclist Lance Armstrong, eventually having 30 or 40 walkers raising $80,000 per year.

And, in typical fashion, Cochrane jumped in at the deep end when it came to treatment.

“She had chemo, a double mastectomy and radiation,” said Mike. “She decided to go as hard as she could to increase the chances of remission.”

It worked for four years and then the cancer returned in her spine and pelvis.

“It was incurable at that point, like a chronic disease,” added Mike. “Then it’s about quality of life.”

Cochrane tried many different treatments and became a spokeswoman and poster girl for the B.C. Cancer Foundation.

She also held down a job as controller with Sun Rich Fresh Foods in Richmond.

Her father, Ted Bassett, was a lifelong competitive curler, and Cochrane got into curling at the Royal City Curling Club in New Westminster.

She took clinics and lessons and when curling became an Olympic sport, Cochrane and her friends decided they’d like to get there.

Cochrane was lead on B.C.’s 2008 mixed curling team, winning the award for most sportsmanlike player at the Canadian championships.

“She was curling at a super high level,” said Mike. “They went to the nationals in Iqaluit, so we all went there with her.”

When competitive curling became too physically tough for her, she switched to coaching. Cochrane took an under-20 and a competitive ladies team to the provincial finals.

Her parents had moved to Australia and her dad had run into Hugh Millikin, a Canadian curler who now represents Australia.

“The two decided they’d go into men’s senior curling,” said Mona. “The 2010 curling final was in Russia and Ted asked Anita if she’d go with them as their coach. She said she’d love to and they won a bronze medal.”

Mona said her daughter never let her illness stop her. “I remember driving her to the curling rink for coaching and we’d stop and she’d get sick by the side of the road,” she said. “I’d go, ‘Are you okay, we can go home,’ and she’d say, ‘No, we’re going coaching.’”

Towards the end of her life, Cochrane had to decide whether to take her last course of treatment.

“A few of her friends said, ‘You’re such a great inspiration to all of us, we want you to keep fighting,’” added Mike.

“They wanted her to know the impact her fight to live was having on their lives.”