Around the time LIVE AT BLUES ALLEY was recorded, she was able to quit her "day job" at a landscape nursery and devote herself mostly-full-time to her music. In addition she worked with another artist to paint murals on the walls of elementary school cafeterias. When her hip started to hurt, she attributed it to spending too much time on stepladders. She began to walk with a cane and sat more than she stood when she performed. Finally she got X-rayed and it turned out that the hip was broken. The cancer had returned and spread throughout her bones. Though the prognosis looked poor, she began aggressive chemotherapy at Johns Hopkins (one of the best cancer centers in this country). I don't believe she performed again after she began the chemotherapy, except to sing "What a Wonderful World" at the tribute concert a few weeks before she died.