- Nancy beat cancer three times, while also watching her loved ones struggle with the disease
- She raised more than a million dollars for cancer research
- The grandmother just recently completed her final Relay For Life walk
Here Nancy tells her story in her own words.
Tying the shoelaces on my sneakers, I pulled on my Cancer Council Relay For Life shirt.
It was October 2024 and, after 17 years’ fundraising, it was to be my final walk.
‘Ready to go love?’ I called out to my husband John, 83.
I loved taking part in the charity event, but this year I was hanging up my walking shoes – at 81 years old, my legs just weren’t as sprightly as they used to be!
At the oval, paper lanterns in tribute to those battling or lost to cancer were lining the track.
‘Ready to go love?’
They were covered in messages of hope and we would light them to burn throughout the night.
Cancer has been a constant in my life since losing my brother Peter to lung cancer when he was just three years old.
My parents, George and Morna, myself, and my nine brothers and sisters were utterly heartbroken.
But tragically, it wouldn’t be the last time cancer touched our family.
In 1993, aged 50, I was in the shower, when I found a lump in my right breast.
Worried, I went to my GP to get it checked out.
After a biopsy, I was called back in for my results. My doctor’s face was grave as she delivered the news.
‘I’m sorry, Nancy. You have stage two breast cancer,’ she told me.
I was shattered.
At home, I told John then 51, and we broke the news to our children Steve, 29, Dianne, 27, and Tamara, 21. I promised I’d fight with everything I had.
‘I’m sorry, Nancy. You have stage two breast cancer.’
I started chemo right away, but with the closest clinic in Adelaide, 250km from our home in Berri, it was an exhausting trip every three weeks.
Then doctors suggested radiation too. ‘You’ll need to have it daily for six weeks,’ they advised.
But with no family to stay with in Adelaide, and a mortgage and bills to pay, I had no idea how we’d afford a hotel.
Thankfully, my doctor told me about Cancer Council housing that provides accommodation for those who need it.
Having somewhere to stay each day after radiation was a blessing.
When I beat this, I’ll pay them back one day, I vowed.
Declared in remission five years later, I stayed true to my promise.
In 2007 I began fundraising for the Cancer Council in my first Relay for Life walk.
But in March 2016 I faced another cancer battle – this time in my right kidney, so I had emergency surgery to remove the infected organ.
Thankfully, I didn’t require further treatment.
‘How can I do this again?’
But nine months on, in December 2016, my health took a turn again when I experienced constipation, pain, and bleeding.
I was shocked when doctors found stage three cancer in my colon.
‘How can I do this again?’ I sobbed to John.
‘You’re the strongest woman I know,’ he said. ‘I’ll be by your side every day.’
I started chemotherapy again in January 2017, but was so ill after my first round of treatment I made the tough decision to stop.
‘If I only have six months left, I don’t want to spend them sick in a hospital bed,’ I told my family.
Incredibly, the chemo worked, and doctors found no traces of cancer.
Now I’m cancer free and know how lucky I am to be alive, having lost my dad at 59 to lung cancer, my mum to lymphedema at 82, my brother Harold to lung cancer at 59, my brother John to prostate cancer at 86, and my sister Ivy to bowel cancer at 69.
Their deaths drive me to keep fighting for a cure.
In 2018 my family had genetic testing done, but results found we didn’t carry a cancer gene. We’ve just been unlucky.
‘You’re the strongest woman I know.’
To date, I’ve raised over a million dollars for cancer research through Relay for Life, Daffodil Days and Biggest Morning Teas.
And in September 2022, I was awarded an OAM for my charity efforts.
With John and my daughters by my side, I was bursting with pride as I attended the award ceremony at Government House in Adelaide.
I knew my parents and siblings would be so proud.
Sadly, cancer again found its way back into my life.
My son Steve fought bowel cancer, and is now in remission, my daughter Dianne had a melanoma removed from her face, and I nursed John through his battle with bladder cancer last year.
John is doing well, and his treatment was a success.
While it would be easy to wonder, Why me?, I’ve learned that a positive attitude goes a long way.
I believe I was put on this Earth to help people.
We don’t know what the future holds for any of us, so that’s why I fight for a cancer-free world.
