Diagnosed with breast cancer late last year while working for the Leukaemia Foundation in Orange, Ms Snodgrass and her family found themselves thrust onto the emotional rollercoaster of diagnoses, treatment and prognosis.

Now in her sixth course of chemotherapy following surgery, Ms Snodgrass will soon face radiotherapy treatment.

She is sharing her very personal cancer story to give an insight into the challenges patients, their family and friends face.

She says one of the most difficult challenges isn’t treatment and side effects but the expectation for her and her family to stay positive.

“Maintaining a healthy level of hope is a wonderful attribute but being bombarded with the attitude ‘if you are positive you can beat this’ is not,” she said.

While people may mean well, Ms Snodgrass believes telling cancer patients to be positive so they can beat their disease takes a huge toll on their loved ones.

“It demeans and lessens the wonderful, often long and exhausting fight put up by many people with a diagnosis of cancer who died,” she said.

“They were no less positive, and they didn’t put in less of a fight, they were just unlucky.”

Since her diagnosis, Ms Snodgrass has tried to maintain her trademark wonderful sense of humour, the sense of humour that lifted the spirits of her patients at Anson Cottage as she gave them their own dose of chemotherapy.

“I drink my soft drink out of a glass and look forward to the time after chemotherapy it can be a glass of red wine,” she said.

She is now in the midst of an adjunct course of therapy, that is, a combination of chemotherapy and radiation therapy to fight the breast cancer she says wasn’t diagnosed as early as she would have liked.

“But fortunately it was at a time when the breast cancer had not spread to any other part of my body so yes I am luckier than most,” she said.

After 20 years working with cancer patients Ms Snodgrass says she’s grateful she never underestimated the nasty side effects of chemotherapy.

“Thank goodness I didn’t,” she said.

Drawing on her experience she knew she ticked all the boxes when it came to a predisposition for side-effects with chemotherapy, including motion sickness as a child, feeling sick on a swing and morning sickness during pregnancy.

“The first thing I said to my medical oncologist was that I wasn’t looking forward to it and she immediately organised all the drugs to help me through four different types of chemotherapy drugs,” she said.

Ms Snodgrass says she is making her cancer journey with a wonderful benefit - a loving family and good friends.

“My partner Vaughan, my children and their families have been a wonderful support and I believe it is often much harder for those close to you to watch and have to deal with your treatment than it is for you,” she said.

She says they’ve had to watch as she curls up in a ball in bed for days after chemotherapy, but are also there to share her relief from symptoms so they can have “some fun” before the next course of treatment.

“While I was in hospital after surgery my son-in-law walked into the room and handed me my baby grandson without a word and there was no better get well or gift card than that,” she said.

Ms Snodgrass continues to work with the Leukaemia Foundation between treatments.