Chaos is pretty typical for Dana and Doug McLeod.

With seven boys, ages 8 to 19, their schedules are usually caught between robotics, clubs and football games for so many teams that Dana gets the mascots confused when she's cheering.

"I just yell, 'Go Post Falls! That's always safe," the 41-year-old said with a laugh.

She juggles that with attending North Idaho College full time, too. The plan is when she gets a degree in medical administration she can help with finances, as Doug hunts for more construction work.

"My goal is to stay on the Dean's List," she said, smiling.

With so much going on, Dana and her husband were, in a way, groomed for her recent breast cancer diagnosis.

It's just one more thing to juggle.

And, perhaps, one more thing they can use to help their boys.

"I want them to know God has a bigger picture, because I know they're going to come through hard times. I know it. It's life, everybody does," Dana said, seated by Doug in their Post Falls living room. "I don't want them to feel hopeless. I want them to see if I can make it through this, with all the stuff that's on my plate, they can make it through anything."

The confirmation in April that the lump on Dana's breast was malignant came at a stressful time, she said. Not only had it been a week before her final exams, but her youngest, Zac, had also gone missing that morning, the police hunting for him around town.

Half an hour after the boy was found, Doug said, Dana got the call.

"It stopped me in my tracks," he said. "It really did surprise me."

"I really didn't expect it," Dana added. "I kind of had this out-of-body experience, 'This is not really happening to me.'"

Although only stage 2, the cancer was aggressive, requiring three kinds of chemotherapy treatments, which will follow with radiation and a partial mastectomy.

It has certainly affected Dana. Each chemo session has landed her on the couch and in bed for days or more than a week.

"I've felt like I've been in a revolving door, get chemo, feel better, get chemo," she said.

That doesn't mean life has stopped.

Dana is still attending NIC part time so she can graduate as planned next spring.

Boys still have games, school, clubs, and need to be fed.

"We could have a less hectic schedule. But Doug and I decided long ago we'd keep busy boys," she said, shortly before Seth, 15, needed to be driven to football practice on Monday.

It has been harder to meet the demand, she acknowledged.

When she has been at her worst, the state of the house has been in the hands of her husband and boys.

"Sometimes the house gets out of control, for two or three days," Doug said. "There's laundry everywhere, and there's dirty dishes, and the house is not clean."

Dana also wasn't up to spending much time with her second oldest before he left for college, she said.

"It's hard to be idle. There's too much for me to do to be sick," she said. "Not just stuff I have to do, stuff I want to do."

She just reminds herself what she teaches her boys, she added.

"I just have to remember there is a purpose," Dana said.

Friends have eased things a bit. Folks have pitched in cleaning the house, watching the kids, raising money, even cooking meals.

"People don't know how to cook for nine," Doug said with a laugh. "They bring meals big enough for an army."

Dana's close friend Carla Deuser said it's easy to lend Dana a hand.

"She does the same for everybody else," Deuser said, adding that Dana encourages any questions people have about her cancer. "She has seven boys, but you wouldn't know it, she's so generous and giving of herself, even if she doesn't have that much to give."

The boys are learning from their parents' examples.

"It's taught me how to cook better," said Micah, 13, with a smile, of how the boys occasionally cook dinner while their healing mother directs from the couch.

Matthew, 12, said he admires his mom.

"I think she's really brave about it," he said. "It's kind of hard to do all the things she's doing."

Folks can donate to the family at Donations to Dana account, or the McLeod account, at Potlatch Credit Union.

The whole experience has been sobering, Doug acknowledged.

But nothing the McLeod team can't handle.

"I don't think (the kids) are really shaken that much, because of the type of person Dana is," he said of how she rises above the misery. "She's always been that way and still is now. The kids know that."