When Emily found a lump in her neck, she immediately dismissed it.
Figuring it was likely an inflamed lymph gland, the 26-year-old showed it to her father, expecting the typically blasé GP to validate her tame diagnosis.
But after asking a few questions, her dad said: "I think you need to go see a doctor."
One ultrasound and CT scan later, what Emily thought was a harmless lump became very scary, she told Mamamia.
"Things started to happen really fast. That's when I started to realise the heaviness of the situation."
The doctor hoped it was tuberculosis, or maybe pneumonia. Because if it was neither of those, it was most likely cancer.
"I think my jaw dropped a million miles," Emily said. "Never in a million years did I think that cancer was going to come into my life, at least not at the age of 26."
Five days later, an oncologist examined the lump, saying it was Hodgkin's Lymphoma – a cancer of the lymphatic system. Having never heard the term before, it wasn't until Emily heard the word "chemotherapy" that she realised the gravity of the situation.
"My world just got completely shaken upside down," she recalled, dreading what was to come. But her treatment wasn't at all what she was expecting.
"All my knowledge of cancer came from movies where people were violently throwing up in the toilet bowl, and that never happened. It was exhausting — I've never felt more tired — but I didn't feel that sick."
And then it was over. Emily was 27 and in remission. She had a new personal trainer, had "dumped a really crap boyfriend", and was "feeling great" — and she said as much to the oncologist during a routine scan at the eight-month mark.
That was when he revealed the cancer had come back.
"It was 500 times worse than the initial time," Emily said. "I knew how hard treatment was and how good it felt to get my health back, my energy back, and my brain power back after all the treatment. The fact he said that we're going to have to do it all again, and this time the treatment was going to be more severe, and take longer… It was just completely and utterly shattering."
Emily had gone into her first diagnosis with "so much hope". She was young, healthy, and was told, "If you're going to get cancer, you want to get Hodgkin's Lymphoma — it's pretty much curable".
That same spirit didn't carry into her second diagnosis.
"I was defeated, deflated, and it was a huge kick in the guts."
The doctor was also right about her treatment, she said: it was worse the second time around. Emily had chemotherapy every week for 10 weeks, followed by a stem cell transplant.
"They give you seven days of chemo," Emily said. "You go to the hospital at 8am in the morning, and then back at 8pm at night, you have two doses a day. Then, on the last day, they give you something that's so potent that if you don't put your stem cells back in the next day, it will pretty much kill you."
The treatment wipes both good cells and cancerous cells, to "reboot your immune system and start from scratch with, hopefully, no cancer cells in there", Emily said.
And the aftermath of this treatment was like the movies, she explained.
"I had my head in the toilet, and I couldn't lift a spoon to feed myself," Emily said.
"I lost so much weight. I relied on my mum and dad to do everything for me. Two months later, having a shower was all I could achieve for the day, and then I'd be back in bed."
It was five years after finishing this round of treatment, that Emily — who was in London celebrating being out of remission and cancer-free in London — found another lump.
"They rushed me through the system, they ultra-sounded it, and did all the tests. It looked like what is known as a schwannoma, which is benign."
But a mix of intuition and paranoia told her otherwise, and she noticed the lump had started to grow.
"Once you've had cancer once or twice, you think that every lump or bump could potentially be cancer. So I pushed and I pushed, and no one really listened. And then I found myself a private doctor, and I said, 'I really would love a biopsy, or love someone to have another look.'"
The doctor ordered the MRI and biopsy purely for Emily's peace of mind. "I walked into the room to get my results, and thought 'This is going to be fine. Everyone's feeling confident about it; I just need to know for myself'," Emily told Mamamia.
"Within 20 seconds of talking to him, I knew something was wrong."
The doctor told her it was a sarcoma, a rare and aggressive form of cancer. "One of my first questions was, 'Is this going to kill me?' And he said, 'If we can get this all out in one go without it spreading anywhere, then you will be fine. But if it has spread anywhere, then it's no longer curable.'"
It was "the most anxious and terrifying" moment of Emily's life.
"I was so angry as well because I had asked and had pleaded with people to take this seriously," she said.
Fortunately, it hadn't spread. The operation went well, the radiotherapy went well. And at the end of this year, the now-39-year-old will be five years in remission.
However, the cancer Emily had beaten three times threatened to take something else away from her: her ability to have children.
She had been told from the outset that cancer treatment would affect her fertility. "When I had the stem cell transplant, they laid it on harder," she explained. "They said, 'This is probably going to send you into menopause because this will be too much for your reproductive system to handle. So I froze my eggs."
But at 28, and newly single, babies weren't yet on the radar for Emily. That was, until she met her now-partner.
The pair tried IVF, but were told repeatedly told that nothing was guaranteed. "It started to get really sad," Emily said. "All my friends started having babies and just falling pregnant naturally. It started to become really hard and confronting.
"I felt so lucky that I got my life back and everything was back to normal. But the one thing that cancer took from me was the certainty to become a mum, and that felt really unfair."
Months after her final surgery, Emily had to have an operation on her arm due to nerve damage — and during her recovery, she began to feel incredibly unwell.
"I thought, 'Oh, my God, there's cancer growing again.'"
But it wasn't cancer. It was a baby.
"It was a huge shock, because everyone had told me that I would never be able to conceive naturally," she said.
And now, after welcoming her son Sidney three and a half years ago, Emily is eight months pregnant with her second child.
"After years of IVF, we'd given up. We were about to fill out the adoption papers, then I fell pregnant naturally again.
"Your body's pretty crazy. It can pull out some miracles, even when the doctors tell you all the bad things, it's kind of nice to know that your body just wants to heal, and it can do wonderful things."
Emily now raises money for cancer research through her business, Bravery Co., which makes beautiful headscarves. She is also an ambassador for Brave Shave 2024 — which is calling on Aussies to shave, cut, or colour their hair for cancer research.
"It's celebrating the bravery that has to happen," Emily said of Brave Shave. "It's kind of forced upon you, I suppose, when you're going through treatment. You've been told you have cancer, and you ultimately lose your hair. And I feel like they just nailed it with the way that they are celebrating the bravery that's involved in this."
After 13 years and multiple cancer diagnoses, Emily has learned "what really matters in life".
"It was a huge lesson, to really think about the relationships in my life; who I love and who probably wasn't serving me, and then getting back to the things that really lit me up.
"I think that was something that I wouldn't have learned had I not been forced to slow down and look at my life at such a young age. That was definitely a silver lining."
Feature Image: Supplied