A mum was told she had just two years to live following a devastating cancer diagnosis - but five years later she is still alive and fighting the rare illness.
Brave Gemma Ellis, 39, was told by doctors that she was terminally ill back in 2017 and was diagnosed with a rare form of breast cancer after months of tests. The former NHS worker quit her job and did not know how long she had left with her two young children.
She went through six rounds of chemotherapy, surgery and 15 gruelling rounds of radiotherapy before incurable lesions were found on a CT scan on her lungs and spine in April 2018.
But five years down the line, Gemma, from Manchester, is still alive and is now running a thriving charity shop which helps to support other people with stage four cancer, despite her own three-weekly chemotherapy.
Gemma had been working as a discharge co-ordinator for the NHS when she was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer back in February 2017, which is a rare but very aggressive disease.
She said: "Inflammatory breast cancer is very, very rare. You don't get a lump. I had pain and redness all over the top of my left breast.
"Nobody knew what it was and it doesn't show up on mammograms. I had months of going back and forth to doctors before I had an MRI and was diagnosed.
"I was given one to two years but have survived five. It was very very lonely at first, there was no support out there.
"Stage four means treatable but not curable - you know then that you're not getting away from it. When you're diagnosed with primary cancer you're given all sorts of booklets about treatment, support groups, and recovery.
"When it's secondary it was very different, there was very little information. I needed that support group and positive stories. I needed to hear about people who were still living normal lives and how long they had survived.
"There was nothing to help my family or to show me how to tell my children. It’s a one-day-at-a-time existence. You can get friendly with someone and then lose them after a few months, while others carry on for 13 years.
"It’s dependent on the kind of cancer and treatment and different people respond in different ways, but there’s no way to predict it. Really you’ve just got to crack on."
Gemma's secondary lesions have spread to her brain as well as her spine and both lungs. She talked frankly with her daughters about her illness, and they even held wig parties when she began losing her hair.
Because of a post-surgery infection, she also has a 20cm hole in her skull, just behind her forehead.
Shocked by the lack of resources out there for her following the diagnosis, Gemma decided to help others with terminal cancer. Alongside husband Ben, 33, and their daughters - Ruby, 12, and Scarlett, 10 - she started sending out packages containing comforting products and pages of information.
She added: "It's been pretty mad, but I've always been the type to just get up and do something if I want to. I don't know how I'm doing this. The shop is really busy and I just love it.
"The first full day I did made me feel like a normal human being. It was lovely to get up, load the dishwasher and go to work. I felt like a proper working mum again, I'd missed that so much. I never imagined I would do this. I am really, really happy."
Her organisation Stage 4 Deserves More - The GEM Foundation, then became a charity in July of this year, with Gemma receiving a letter from then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson. Now, Gemma's fundraising has been such a success she founded a research foundation and opened her charity shop on October 1 in Chapel-en-le-Frith.
She added: "Don’t panic. Let people help you, let them in and take everything you are offered. Look for positive stories."
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