RUSSELLVILLE — Ashley George remembers the day she became one of the “Faces of Cancer.”

Her grandmother and mother had each been diagnosed with a type of thyroid cancer that seems to run in families. A doctor at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville suggested that George and her four siblings be tested. It was May 2000, and George was 16 years old.

“I had the gene, and my youngest brother had it,” the Russellville woman said. “Both of us had surgery the same day.”

While her brother, who was 6, did not have cancer and was released from the hospital the next day, Ashley already had cancer. She stayed in the hospital for one week.

George is one of 10 in the Kentucky Cancer Program’s “Faces of Cancer” exhibit, which features portraits and stories of 10 southcentral Kentucky cancer survivors. The exhibit will be displayed at Logan Memorial Hospital through Thursday. “Faces of Cancer” has already been displayed in Bowling Green and Monroe County. It will travel to Butler, Edmonson and Hart counties in the spring.

Click here for more photos from the exhibit.

“We knew not everyone could travel to Bowling Green to see it,” Elizabeth Westbrook, Kentucky Cancer Program cancer control specialist, said Friday during a kick-off luncheon for the exhibit. “It’s so important that we wanted to go to each community where these people reside.”

Others featured are Brenna Brown of Russellville, James Cartwright of Morgantown, Louise Doyle of Park City, Dona Ebert of Munfordville, Jean Page of Tompkinsville and Anne Grubbs, Jean Gray, Lucy Mason and Mary Jo Smith, all of Bowling Green.

“Living with cancer is a journey. There are 14 million cancer survivors in the United States today,” Westbrook said. “Many are active. You wouldn’t even know they have cancer. All have unique stories to tell.”

Award-winning photojournalist Jeanie Adams-Smith, a photojournalism professor at Western Kentucky University, interviewed and took pictures of the subjects. Westbrook said Adams-Smith, who was unable to attend the reception, enjoyed putting together the exhibit.

“I think she feels close to all the people she interviewed for the project,” she said. “She’s very talented. We were very lucky to get her for this project.”

Brown’s story of cancer goes back so far, she barely remembers it. The 16-year-old was diagnosed with neuroblastoma, a cancer that develops in the nerve tissue, at the tender age of 13 months. Doctors found it after they noticed that her eyes moved a lot because of a disorder called opsoclonus myoclonus syndrome.

“They jittered back and forth,” she said.

Her condition required surgery at Vanderbilt and shots of medicine, which her parents would inject nightly as their daughter clutched Panda, her stuffed panda bear toy.

“I would go through phases of really hating it and then not really minding,” she said.

Brown said she didn’t fully realize that she was a cancer survivor until she was 7 years old, when a newspaper did an article about Brown and her twin sister, Meg.

“I never realized it was a big deal,” she said. “I have a scar on my stomach. I used to have checkups, but I haven’t had to do that since I was 11.”

Brown plans to study to be a pediatric occupational therapist to help other young children. She advises others not to dwell on their illness and be hopeful about the future.

“Everything happens for a reason,” she said. “It makes you stronger in the long run.”

George has also taken a proactive stance from dealing with her cancer. She found out in 2008 that her 3-year-old daughter, Madelyn, has the gene for the same type of cancer. The toddler’s thyroid will be removed before she turns 5.

“It never crossed my mind that Madelyn would have to live with this,” she said. “I cried for days.”

She and her family members with that particular type of thyroid cancer plan to be part of a study of the disease, which a doctor told her seems to hit first-born females.

“When I see doctors, they ask a lot of questions,” she said. “They have heard about (the cancer), but have never seen anyone with it.”

Although she has to take a pill for the rest of her life and get checkups every six months, George keeps a positive attitude that she said is inspired by her sister who died of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 2008.

“Never give up hope,” she said. “Don’t let it get you down.”

“Faces of Cancer” will be displayed at the following locations:

March 17-24 at the Butler County Cooperative Extension Office in Morgantown, with opening reception at noon March 17.

April 28-May 5 at the Bank of Edmonson County in Brownsville, with opening reception at 5 p.m. April 28.

May 19-26 at the Hart County Cooperative Extension Office in Munfordville, with opening reception at 4 p.m. May 19.