My Story
From six months or less to live to no evidence of disease.
Before cancer
Before cancer, life already felt heavy.
I was constantly giving and holding everything together.
I was chronically stressed and, emotionally, I wasn’t okay, although I don’t think I would have admitted that at the time.
Somewhere along the way, I had lost myself.
I felt stuck, unsupported and unseen.
I was carrying things alone that nobody else could see, and I had lost my voice.
But I kept going.
I kept coping.
I kept being the "strong one."
Looking back, I can see that I had been living under pressure for a very long time.
I was carrying far more than I knew how to put down, and my body had been living through all of it with me.
THE DIAGNOSIS
In 2019, I found lumps on my body and my life changed overnight.
I was diagnosed with aggressive stage 4 metastatic malignant melanoma.
It had spread throughout my body, including my lymph nodes, adrenals, ovaries, lungs, chest wall and soft tissue.
There were also 25 tumours in my brain.
I was told I had six months or less to live, and that was if I responded to palliative treatment.
Walking back into my home and seeing my children was one of the most painful moments of my life.
I didn’t know how to look at their faces without breaking down.
The heartbreak, fear and sheer panic consumed me.
But I still felt I had to smile, pretend I was okay and somehow be strong for everyone else, while inside I was falling apart.
I searched life expectancy at two o’clock in the morning.
I stood in the shower for as long as I could so that I could cry in private.
I experienced my first panic attack alone.
I was terrified.
The Turning Point
For several days, I was completely lost inside the prognosis I had been given.
Then something in me shifted.
Call it stubbornness, desperation or the smallest flicker of hope, but I couldn’t accept that six months was necessarily the end of my story.
I began searching for people who had healed against the odds.
Their stories became my evidence that another outcome might be possible, and they gave me the hope I desperately needed.
I started asking a different question.
What could I do to support my body through this?
BECOMING AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT
I received a small amount of immunotherapy. It was offered palliatively, in the hope that it might extend my life.
After three combination infusions, I developed severe liver toxicity and spent months taking high-dose steroids.
I later received a small amount of further immunotherapy.
Alongside my medical care, I began learning everything I could about the body, healing and the mind-body connection.
I learned about epigenetics, psychoneuroimmunology and the ways our thoughts, emotions, nervous system, relationships and lived environment can affect our physiology.
More than anything, I began to understand that my body was intelligent.
It had been adapting and responding to everything I had lived through.
For the first time, I stopped seeing my body as something that had betrayed me.
I began treating it as something worthy of my love, trust and support.
WHAT CHANGED
I worked on reducing fear wherever I could.
I used meditation and visualisation to help my mind and body experience something beyond the prognosis I had been given.
I became deeply aware of the words I was hearing, speaking and repeating.
I reframed treatment as support and scans as information rather than allowing every appointment to become a prediction of my future.
I rested without guilt.
I asked for help.
I expressed what I needed and began creating boundaries.
I nourished myself, spent time in nature, moved my body, practised gratitude and brought moments of pleasure, connection and hope back into my life.
I began putting down things I had carried for far too long.
Little by little, I created a different environment around me and within me.
One that felt safer, kinder and more supportive of healing.
The Call
Two years later, I heard the words I had dreamed of hearing:
No evidence of disease.
After being told I had six months or less to live, I had healed against the medical odds and achieved what is known as a radical remission.
That moment will stay with me forever.
Why I do this work
I have spent the years since trying to understand why my body may have become vulnerable, what genuinely supported my healing and why those changes mattered.
That search has taken me deep into the science of the mind-body connection and the physical, emotional and lived environments our bodies experience.
It has also led me to work with and support people living through cancer, many of whom feel frightened, overwhelmed and unsure of what they can do for themselves.
I know what it is like to feel as though your future has been taken out of your hands.
I also know what can change when you begin to understand your body differently and recognise that you can take an active role in supporting yourself through cancer.
I cannot promise anyone my outcome.
What I can offer is everything I have lived, everything I have learned and the support I desperately needed when I was first diagnosed.
You and your body deserve to feel supported through this.
Shellie xx
Ways To Work With Me
The Healing Room
Ongoing guidance, live masterclasses and a supportive community for people who want to understand how to support themselves and their bodies through cancer.
Private 1:1 Support
A personal space to explore what you are experiencing, what your body may have been carrying and what meaningful support could look like for you now.
Speaking and Live Events
Honest, hopeful and thought-provoking conversations about cancer, healing and becoming an active participant in your own wellbeing.
Not Sure What You Need?
You do not have to work everything out alone.
Get in touch and we can find the most helpful place for you to begin.