Dianne Popp keeping her faith strong despite odds of beating lung cancer

Feb. 1—Dianne Popp is keeping her faith and remains as committed to doing God's work as she's ever been. That's despite being told she has only a short time to live.

It's an unwavering faith, one not imaginable to most people. But to Popp, it's easy to understand.

For the past 29 years, the retired educator has battled cancer on five different occasions. She's undergone a staggering 87 chemotherapy treatments.

She has battled Stage 4 lung cancer for the past several months.

Even though the disease will likely take her life, she's by no means ready to give up. She has not relinquished the belief that God can intervene.

"There's things to be done, and I'm going to continue to do them for as long as God gives me the strength to do them," she said in an interview shortly before Christmas. "I want to continue to find and bring as many lost people to Jesus Christ as I can before He calls me home."

Such an objective has now become an even bigger goal for Dianne, a devout Christian.

"I've always loved the Lord; I don't know any other way to live my life except by honoring Him and doing as He commands me to do," said Dianne, a longtime member of Harmony Baptist Church.

She had only been married to her first husband, Bill Becker, for a short time before she landed her first teaching job. He was a sheriff's road patrol deputy for 18 years. He also worked as a firefighter for the city of Milledgeville. He later contracted a liver disease. He received a liver transplant and lived for about five years before he died in 2008.

Dianne retired in 2012 as a longtime classroom teacher and administrator.

She inherited her family home after her father's passing.

"I've been here now 70 years," she said. "I've lived right here all of those years. And I'm hoping to make it 71 years."

After her first husband's death, she met Lou Popp, and the couple fell in love. They married, and now they both give of themselves in whatever way they can to serve the Lord at Harmony Baptist Church. The couple has been married 11 years.

Lou, a semi-retired Vietnam veteran, builds furniture. He is the owner of Popp's Customs.

"I got married in May 1970 and I was working eight hours a day at the hospital, and in September, I started college at Georgia College," Dianne said. "It took me five years to get my teaching degree because I couldn't take a full load."

She recalled when she did her student teaching that the regular classroom teacher became ill and she took over the class.

"They didn't bring a substitute teacher in there," Dianne said. "It was at Harrisburg where I did my student teaching."

Dianne was later offered a teaching position at John Milledge Academy, where she taught fifth grade for 10 years.

She later accepted a teaching job with the Baldwin County School District in 1985.

Her first position in the public school setting came as a third grade teacher from 1985 until 1993 at the old Midway Elementary School, which she attended when she was a youngster.

One of her girlfriends, Joycelyn Sanders, was later offered the principal's job.

"She asked me if I would serve as her assistant principal, but then we found out they wouldn't let two new people serve in those roles at the same time, so they put me at Davis Elementary School on the southside as the assistant principal for two days during the week," Dianne said. "And then, I'd go to Southside Elementary where I worked under Principal May Dixon and Cheryl Jones was at Davis Elementary."

Dianne alternated in working as assistant principal between those two schools.

"We'd rotate Fridays," she said. "I was back and fourth between those two schools."

At the time, it was difficult all the way around because neither school had enough students to warrant a full-time assistant principal, she explained.

"So, they wound up with half a person and that was me," Dianne said with a big smile while seated on the couch in the living room of her country home.

She said Tom West, who was serving at that time as human resource director of the school district, informed her that they were getting ready to open up a new school, Creekside Elementary.

"He said, we want you to be the assistant principal," Dianne said, recalling took to the job.

At the time, she worked with Dr. Martha Williams.

Dianne served as assistant principal there for seven years.

She later became principal.

"I got the position and was there for seven years until 2012," Dianne said.

She worked 23 years as a classroom teacher and 14 in school administration, retiring after 37 years in education.

By the time Dianne assumed the role as Creekside principal, she had already faced her second bout with cancer. She was diagnosed with breast cancer in It came in December 1993.

"I had radiation, chemo and surgery," she recalled. "They found it during the Christmas holidays."

Her first cancer was detected on one of her feet.

"That was a skin cancer," Dianne said. "I had it taken off and received 19 stitches."

"The foot cancer happened about five months before my breast cancer," she said.

She said her breast cancer was detected as an indention on one of her breasts.

"You couldn't feel a lump or anything," Dianne said. "It was like a piece of fatback. You pressed it in but it wouldn't come back out."

She said she had always taken preventive steps to guard against breast cancer.

"I always had my yearly mammograms," she said.

She went through eight treatments of chemo, and it was discovered that the chemo was intensifying the radiation treatments, which created water blisters.

"I had to wear burn pads," Dianne said. "I'd go into the classroom and wiggle all around in my desk chair while trying my best to teach students,"

Dianne later discovered that her hemoglobin was very low, caused by a loss of blood. That led to a colonoscopy.

"And they found colon cancer," Dianne lamented. "The good news about it was that it was still in the wall. It had not moved out of the wall of the colon."

Surgeons removed 15 inches of her colon in 2007.

Packets of material from the school were sent her home so she could continue working during recovery and treatment.

"I'd work on whatever I could on the computer and send it back," Dianne said. "I had labels made so that you could stick it on the kid so the teachers would know that afternoon which bus they needed to get on and which bus they needed to get on in the mornings."

In 2009, Dianne had a completely different form of cancer.

It was cancer on her lip.

She had surgery again and 22 stitches.

"I did that surgery through the Georgia Dermatology Clinic in Dublin," Dianne said. "My lip felt like I could I touch my nose with it. It was all swollen up so badly."

In 2019, colon cancer reappeared.

"This time, it was in a different spot," she said.

She recently shared how God worked at that time.

She learned that the cancer had moved to her liver and was classified as Stage 4 liver cancer.

"It's 12 centimeters by 12 centimeters, which is almost four inches," Dianne said.

Dianne said she called the cancer center to see what the next step would be.

Her doctor was plainspoken.

"This is not anything we can heal," she recalled her doctor telling her. "We have some treatments that can slow it down."

Dianne said she saw her doctor on a Tuesday and the next day she was at the hospital having a port put in.

The next week involved a PET scan and the beginning of chemo treatments again.

In January 2019, she started oral treatments.

A scan later revealed that the once large tumor that had been detected had reduced down.

She is now on a 21-day regimen of medication.

"It's been three years and normally, people with Stage 4 liver cancer don't live three years,"

It all begin on Oct. 7, 2019.

She said her doctor believes the medicine is a miracle.

"She can't believe it."

Receiving the medicine is a four-hour procedure.

It was during the onset of COVID-19, patients in the room were separated by petitions.

"I sat on this corner and I could talk to all of these people," Dianne said.

One woman wanted her to turn up her music.

"I thought about it and said, you know we're all here for a reason and that's the hope that we're going to survive this cancer — that what we're doing is going to give us hope," Dianne said. "And if you don't have Christ in your life, then you're at the wrong place. So, I turned up the music and said if it offends you, I'm sorry."

She heard shouts of hallelujah in the room.

"I'm so glad I planted the seed that day," Dianne said. "God takes over from there."

After retirement, Dianne worked for a little while at Georgia College. She later taught at Georgia Military College Prep School."I filled in there for a teacher who went out on maternity leave for 10 weeks and then I stayed on and worked some as a sub-teacher," Dianne said.

Those years rolled into her total years in the education field and ended up giving her 43 years.

She thought right then and there that she had finally reached full-time retirement.

But such wasn't true.

Dianne later was asked to serve as administrative assistant for the Washington Baptist Association.

"The former administrative assistant had worked there for 13 years and they were in need of someone right away to take her place," she said. "So, they called me."

Dianne said she assumed that position on June 16, 2019.

She left shortly before Christmas 2022 because her health started declining.

At Harmony Baptist Church, Dianne serves as treasurer and for several years, she taught the adult Sunday school class.

"I'm the oldest member at Harmony, not in age, but as far as the length of time attending the church," Dianne said. "I know a lot about the history of our church."

No matter how long she has to live, she promises to follow God's teachings and to tell others what God can do in their lives, too, if they allow Him into their hearts.