Terminal cancer, BUT HAPPIER THAN EVER

Despite her diagnosis, Jacqui Drake is determined to live the best life she can while also helping others

- ELAINE HAYWARD

If you asked my friends and family to describe me, they'd say I'm a 'glass is always half full' kind of person.

And while that is true, my positive outlook was tested to its limits when I was diagnosed with secondary cancer at the age of 49. I believed I only had a few years left. But here I am, now aged 61, happier than ever and living a fun-packed life.

My first brush with cancer was in 1993 when I was 30 and I had a cancerous mole removed on my right leg.

For the next 17 years I was cancer-free and continued working as a choreographer and running my own theatre school for children.

I felt so healthy and well that when a painless lump appeared in the same area in 2009, I wasn't overly worried. But knowing that an early diagnosis is vital,

I went to get it checked out, and following tests and scans at the hospital, doctors made the grim discovery that the melanoma had returned.

Over the next two years, I had a further two operations on my leg to remove the cancer. Then, after the second operation in 2011, I had a routine full-body scan.

'I'm afraid it's not good news,' my oncologist told me. The melanoma had spread to my lungs.

I listened shocked as he explained that the cancer was incurable, but I focused on the next words he said, which were 'manageable and treatable'.

I still felt well and when I told my parents they reminded me I wasn't alone - that we'd face this together as a family. I was their only child and we'd always called ourselves the Three Musketeers.

I continued with regular CT scans so doctors could monitor what was happening, however due to progression of my cancer I started a targeted drug treatment in 2013.