U HAVE GOT 2 WEEKS'.4 YEARS LATER, SHE'S LIVING LIFE TO FULL

[Daanyeer]

Young mother struck down with terminal cancer and told 'You've got two weeks'... FOUR years later, she's living life to the full


By Daily Mail Reporter
11th March 2010

A young mother given just days to live after being struck down by killer cancer has defied the odds by surviving for four years.
Claire Blair, 36, was warned she had terminal breast cancer and had just two weeks left in 2006.
She was forced to face up to the heartbreaking fact that she would never see her three little girls grow up.
But now Claire is preparing to celebrate another Mother's Day after launching the mother of all fightbacks.
And she is even taking part in a charity race after watching from the sidelines for the last two years as her two eldest daughters raised money running in her honour.

This year Claire is competing in the 5km Cancer Research Race for Life with her daughters, Abbi, seven, Lolli, five, and three-year-old Micki.
The mother-of-three, married to Mark, 37, still works as a sales officer.
Claire, of Stowmarket, Suffolk, said: 'I never thought I would see this day so I feel very fortunate.
'When I was diagnosed I was in the worst possible situation.
'I was told I had about two weeks to live because the cancer had spread to my liver and bones.
'Not many people have been where I've been and bounced back.'

She was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer in September 2006 when Micki was just five months old.
Claire thought her extreme tiredness was down to having the baby but when she went to hospital she was kept in overnight for tests.
Even before the results came back she knew there was something seriously wrong.

'I could tell by the way the staff were treating me that the results were going to show something terrible but I had no idea how awful it would be,' said Claire.
Terrified of telling her parents over the phone, she drove to their home in Bury St Edmunds, at midnight with her husband.
As Claire sat on their bed she told them she wasn't sure what was going to happen but 'it was going to be bad news'.
The following day her worst fears were realised when doctors confirmed that she had terminal breast cancer and she had two weeks to live. Her vicar visited her and people working at Hospice at Home calleded on the family to prepare them for the worst.
Life for Claire, her family and friends became a race against time to fit everything in, to spend time together.
They went on dream holidays to Disneyland in America and Euro Disney in Paris and attended her sister's wedding in Scotland. Claire and Mark also made their 10th wedding anniversary dream come true, returning to Bali where they spent their honeymoon, ahead of schedule.
'There was no time to waste,' she said. 'Nothing was going to stop me getting out and making memories for my children and husband.'
Brave Claire started to fight back against the deadly disease.
She had rounds of chemotherapy and made frequent visits to Ipswich Hospital.
Claire faced having to organise her own funeral and explaining to her eldest daughter Abbi where mummy was going.
'Surviving cancer isn't just about treatment, it is not just about your personality, it is not just about love and support, it is about all of those things pulled together.
'You have to have a happy balance of them all.
'What I have learnt in the last three years and three months most people don't learn in a lifetime and I have to thank cancer for that. People always ask the question why? I ask, why not?'
'What is so special about me?
'Why am I still here? You can feel sick in the morning, you can throw up in the middle of the night but you get up in the morning to take the kids to school, to go to work,' said Claire.
'You can feel like you can't be bothered to go to work but you have to be bothered.
'If you stay at home and feel sorry for yourself but if you stay positive it will make a difference.
'There will come a time when I will get knocked back but I~m not dying while I have three small children - I'm living with cancer and I'm very thankful for the time I've been given.
'Everybody's going to die - mine was just rammed in my face.
'But without it I would not have got up and done all things we have as a family, made all those special memories and lived each day to the full.
'I would not be here without my husband.
'For me life is easy, I am going to die and it is my husband and children who will be left to pick up the pieces. It is harder for them. 'My kids have been a huge strength.
'I have a book I would write in when I was really ill. It says three little reasons to live, three little reasons to love.'
For more information about Hospice at Home, visit their website at www.hospiceathome.org.uk

For more information about Race for Life, visit the Cancer Research website at www.raceforlife.org


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/artic ... z0hsxSbhix

[Basra-]

Boring. It would have been "interesting" if the article said she died, and also quoted her kids crying and missing her.