Lisa Marie Cornwell was preparing to wed her sweetheart five years ago when she was given just three months to live.
She'd been diagnosed with breast cancer a year earlier in 2016, but it had spread to her bones and then metastasised into her brain.
"Which unfortunately gave me three months to live, with my wedding four months away," she said.
While Ms Cornwell, 35, has defied the odds and a grim prognosis, the south-west Queensland woman's health is still being closely monitored, with a returning brain tumour currently classified as "mostly stable".
"There are no facilities out here [in Charleville] to officially diagnose cancer," Ms Cornwell said.
"We were in a period where we didn't have consistent doctors, so there was no one person over my care, and if there had been I'd say they would have picked this up sooner."
Five years less to live
The life expectancy of Australians has been on a steady rise over the past few years, but Queenslanders living in the outback can expect to live five years less than people elsewhere in the state.
Figures released this month by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) show life expectancy at birth for people in outback Queensland is now 76.6 for males and 80.4 for females.
Statewide, the average life expectancy in Queensland is 80.9 for men and 85.1 for women.
Rural Doctors Association of Queensland (RDAQ) president Matt Masel said the statistics were not unexpected.
"It's concerning, but it's perhaps not terribly surprising," Dr Masel said.
The ABS categorises outback Queensland as the area stretching from Cape York peninsula west to the Northern Territory border, across inland Queensland, to the border with New South Wales and South Australia.
The latest statistics do not include a breakdown of the life expectancy of First Nations Australians, with updated information due to be published in November 2023.
Difficult access to healthy food, doctors
Dr Masel said the RDAQ aimed to close the health equity gap between rural and urban Queensland, partly by advocating for improved access to healthcare and support for rural and remote Queenslanders.
"What we do know is that there's more chronic disease amongst people rurally, diabetes, heart disease, lung disease and mental health conditions," Dr Masel said.
He said there were two factors contributing to a shorter life expectancy in rural areas.
"Access to healthy foods is harder," Dr Masel said.
"And access to GPs and regular general practice care is lower, so rural patients find it harder and sometimes impossible to get the checks to find those chronic diseases, and to treat them in their early stages."
Long journey to recovery
For Ms Cornwell, it's been a long and often painful journey over the six years since her diagnosis.
Initially, she travelled a 16-hour round trip to Toowoomba every three weeks to receive chemotherapy.
"I didn't want to, but I had to fight for my family," she said.
Ms Cornwell said she then transferred her treatment to Roma, three hours' drive away, and more recently to her home town of Charleville.
She now works as a practice coordinator with the Royal Flying Doctor Service, connecting patients in remote areas with specialist services.
"[Chemotherapy in] Toowoomba was the hardest of it, and I still have to go there for scans," she said.
"But treatment, only in the last three months, has been granted in Charleville."
The option to move closer to specialist care was never financially viable for Ms Cornwell.
"It's not fair," she said.
"I do believe because we're so far from consistent care, that we would rather put up with the symptoms than uproot our lives.
"Out here is a special life that we choose, that we love, that's why we're here."
