Update: Maricela Ochoa-Henderson passed away at 5 a.m. on Oct. 10. She was at home surrounded by her family and friends.

Profiles in Pink Blog: It’s going to sound weird, but I think I’m obsessed with Maricela Ochoa-Henderson. I mean that in the best of ways. She’s become a personal light for me.

It started with my visit to the IV League, the Breast Cancer Resource Center’s support group for women with Stage IV breast cancer. It was a rare opportunity. The group normally doesn’t even allow its own facilitator to sit in, much less a reporter. As I walked toward the building, camera and tripod in hand, I wanted to pinch myself.

I didn’t know at the time that it was Maricela who made it all happen. She had shocked the other IV League women by appearing at the meeting that day. Everyone knew how sick she was. This could be the last meeting they had with her… maybe allowing a stranger with a camera take part in this moment wasn’t such a good idea.

It turns out that Maricela had been adamant in insisting YNN be there. When I asked her about it later, she said with a gleam in her eye that the camera was “fun” for her because it was her “home.”

It’s that strength that makes Maricela superhuman to me. You see her now: a bald, frail woman in a wheelchair with sunken eyes and swollen legs, and you see her before: a beautiful actress with raven hair, fire in her eyes and a smirk on her lips, and you are astounded, simply astounded, because both versions of Maricela are suddenly sitting before you. You can’t un-see the damage the cancer’s done to her body, but you can’t deny either she’s the same Maricela Ochoa-Henderson who brought crowds to their feet in theaters across the country. Just as her character said on the TV show “Joan of Arcadia,” "If you make snap judgments of people without looking into their past, you'll never begin to understand them."

So I began looking into Maricela’s past, obsessively. Here’s a headshot of her, her imbd profile, and even an interview she did with KEYE last year.

When I went to Maricela’s house to see her a second time, I confessed that I was guilty of cyber-stalking her. She laughed. Then she said, “Thank you.”

When I went back to see her a third time, her brother-in-law came to the door. He said Maricela had just salsa-danced in her wheel chair the night before but that she was now too weak for visitors. Her family from around the state had already gathered at her bedside.

As of last check Wednesday afternoon, Maricela’s husband said she was rapidly declining.

I hope Maricela knows there’s a stranger out there thinking about her, ready to stick a camera in her face again at the first opportunity. I have a feeling she’d like knowing there’s still a paparazzi journalist on her heels.

Check out the video below to see the full interview with Maricela Ochoa-Henderson.