Being diagnosed with cancer, it accelerates your life. You appreciate the time you have. It's pulled my family more lovingly tight than we've ever been. It's strange to say, but I feel a little blessed about my situation. I see so many people out there who seem to be wasting their life, rather than using it.

Flying was a way of life for Andy Cayton. He served as an Army pilot, flying special operations helicopter missions all over the world.

His unit, called the Night Stalkers, was part of the 160th SOAR (Special Operations Aviation Regiment) that is depicted in the movie, "Black Hawk Down," and is deployed now in Afghanistan. A Gulf War veteran, Andy Cayton was in top physical condition.

But in 1995 he faced another kind of enemy. A lump in his neck the size of a golf ball had grown hard over four months. Biopsies showed that it was a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

The diagnosis ended Andy Cayton's 22-year military career.

At the time of his diagnosis, he was engaged to his wife, Teresa, a professor of nursing at Armstrong State College in Savannah, Ga. They had met while Cayton was finishing a history degree to make his next military rank.

Reality hit like a ton of bricks when the Caytons first walked into the treatment room where patients received their chemotherapy with IV bottles hooked to them. "It was a confirmation for us that I had cancer," he said. "Especially when I walked up to the desk and they knew my name, 'Oh, yes, we've been expecting you.'"

When they got married in September 1995, they had a long, hard discussion as to whether they should or could have kids.

"We decided not to worry about it," said Cayton. "If it was meant to be, it would. Gunnar is three now, and he's definitely all boy."

It was on their honeymoon in Vail, Colo., at Teresa's insistence, that Cayton had his first balloon ride. After all his years of flying, he didn't think it would be that big a deal.

Instead, it was love at first flight.

When they floated up in a wicker basket with the world gone miniature below them, they were suspended like an inhaled breath, except for the exhale of firey gas creating their lift. In the serene quiet, it hit Cayton — hot-air ballooning would be a great way to keep flying in retirement.

One week after the honeymoon, Cayton fell off the roof of a two-story house he was restoring, and crushed both his ankles and shattered his heels. It took six pins in each heel to fuse them back together.

He was laid up with both feet sticking up in the air. Cayton likes to tease that Teresa blamed his decision of having a hot-air balloon business on the pain medication he was on at the time.

After three months, he was told he could stand up for the first time, and within one week he was in California in ballooning school, testing for his license — on very, very sore heels.

Cayton loves the hot-air balloon business. "The best part of the job," he said, "is seeing my customers' smiles on their faces when they're flying in the basket for the first-time.

"All of us, when we were kids and let a balloon go, wondered where the balloon was going, and what it would be like to be on that balloon," said Cayton. "It's the kid that comes out in us again."

He's shared the wonder of hot-air ballooning as an ACS Relay For Life volunteer, raising more than $6,000 giving tethered and cross-country balloon rides, and holding balloon festivals and rallies. And he's used the publicity to increase awareness about cancer.

Cayton, in his Savannah Six flight, has broken one world's record and is seeking to break another. He's using this pursuit as another opportunity to raise interest and money for cancer.

Last winter his 24-hour, non-stop flight in South Dakota broke the world's duration flight record for his mid-size balloon, which usually flies about 1.5 hours. By flying in South Dakota in the winter at minus 20 degrees, Cayton greatly increased the difference of the temperature between the inside of the balloon and the outside, which created more lift and used less fuel. Hence, the longer he could fly.

Cayton's goal is to break the distance world's record of 891 miles and to exceed the 1,000-mile mark. He will attempt this next year, flying from the Dakotas to Savannah at an air speed of 100 miles per hour, at altitudes of 10,000 to 15,000 feet, in about 16 to 18 hours. He looks forward to the challenge.

"Being diagnosed with cancer, it accelerates your life," said Cayton. "You appreciate the time you have. It's pulled my family more lovingly tight than we've ever been. It's strange to say, but I feel a little blessed about my situation. I see so many people out there who seem to be wasting their life, rather than using it.

"It's never slowed me down; don't expect it ever will," said Cayton.