Nellie Archer, 50, from Bodmin, Cornwall, sometimes chooses to take various bits of memorabilia – or the odd bit of costume – along with her to her three weekly chemotherapy treatments. She’s usually got family members or close friends with her and they’ll always take a ‘selfie’ to put on Facebook. Next week [at the time of writing], her friend, Jenny, from her running club, will be coming along with her and they’re planning on bringing along their race medals from the notoriously tough 11-mile event at the Roseland August Trail (RAT) race, which they completed this summer, to honour Team GB and Paralympic GB on their amazing results from Rio 2016. “The reason I do that is to try to inspire people to think, ‘Cancer doesn’t have to be the be-all and end-all to everything in my life,’” explains Nellie.
Since being diagnosed with metastatic (secondary) breast cancer in September 2013, Nellie has learned to adopt this particular outlook on life with cancer. She would not live with cancer, cancer would live with her; it would not upturn her bubbly and energetic demeanour and it would most certainly not stop her from running when she was able to. “Not everything revolves around cancer and it took me a long time to realise that,” says Nellie. “We know it’s life limiting but, at the end of the day, I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to lead a relevantly normal life.” For Nellie, running two to three times a week with her friends at Bodmin Women’s Running Club is one of her favourite pastimes and one that became of particular importance to her when she came face to face with Secondary Breast Cancer three years ago.