Chanel Stoddard and her family had a life-altering day on December 11, 2013. They learned she had stage 4 Hodgkin lymphoma.

They had another one on May 21, after the 20-year-old Boothbay Harbor woman spent months tired and sick from the aggressive course of treatment she chose: Stoddard's doctor informed them, it worked.

Tests showed that Stoddard was cancer-free, and that radiation treatment had helped her body absorb most of the scar tissue from the chemotherapy.

“We're on cloud nine,” her mother Melanie Green said May 29. “We're so excited. She's fought such a hard battle, but never gave up.”

There will be monitoring, four times in the next year and then twice a year for five years after that. But already, the end of the treatment and the big news from the doctor have Stoddard and her family feeling ready for life to get back to normal.

“Now I'm relaxing a lot more,” Stoddard said. A nonprofit, Lucy's Love Bus, is sponsoring her for horseback riding at Burke's Island Farm in Boothbay. And she just got a job working in the kitchen at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.

Stoddard's chemotherapy ended on March 12; the step-granddaughter of Wiscasset’s Anita Green had her last radiation treatment two months later.

She  has stopped having 20 to 30 gumballs a day for the taste loss and nausea the chemotherapy was giving her. She still likes one once in a while, but she doesn't need them anymore.

Her energy is returning, and so is her hair. She was losing it early in treatment. So she decided to shave her head. Then her friend Allison Barter of East Boothbay followed suit, in a show of support.

Both are seeing their hair grow back now.

Barter, 17, said on May 28, she never doubted that Stoddard's cancer treatment would be successful.

“I always knew it would be.”

In January, Leslie Barter was proud of her daughter's head-shaving decision. Since then, the understanding of friendship that the Boothbay Region High School junior has continued to show, in supporting Stoddard, has been another source of pride, Barter said.

Staying positive was important to helping Stoddard get through the treatment, Green said. “Even through all the bad things, even through the worst of it, when she was so sick, she had no energy, no strength, we were pretty confident, but you've always got to keep your fingers crossed,” she said.

The family’s Yorkshire terrier Brady-Duncaan continues to keep a close eye on Stoddard. “He won’t leave her side. He follows her everywhere, 24-7,” Green said.

Related: The face of friendship