A MOTHER from Malmesbury has spoken of her fight against cancer after being given a terminal diagnosis, as she looks to make the most of the time she has left with her daughter and hopes to inspire others in her situation.

43-year-old Anneliese Bushnell, who runs the Wonder Woman in a Wheelchair blog on Facebook where she has documented her experiences, was told in June that she has between six and 18 months left to live after doctors discovered her secondary breast cancer had spread from her bones to her liver and lungs.

Last week, Anneliese was joined by her 12-year-old daughter Mia at Clear Cuts in Malmesbury where she had her hair cut off in aid of the Little Princess Trust ahead of her final rounds of chemotherapy.

The trust makes wigs from donated hair for young girls who have lost their hair to cancer and Anneliese hopes her story will help inspire others in a similar situation to donate their hair too.

Anneliese said, “Last time I did the charity shave which raised more than £2,000 for charity but this time it didn’t feel right because I wasn’t beating cancer this time.

“It didn’t feel the same way as last time when we were fighting it. It’s a very different mind-set when you know it’s secondary and whatever you do you’re not beating it, you’re just buying time at best.”

However Anneliese said it didn’t feel right to do nothing so she booked her hair to be cut for the Little Princess Trust as a reminder to people who have longer hair to not just get it cut off but to think about donating it.

Speaking of her diagnosis, Anneliese said: “This can happen to anyone, I never thought I’d be that person and yet here I am, I’m having to live with dying of cancer and that’s a hard thing to do when people keep telling you, ‘you can beat it, keep fighting’.

"Actually no, just support me a bit, remember I might be in the house on my own dealing with side effects and call me, ask me how I am.

"People sometimes don’t want to be the burden by saying the wrong thing but actually it’s better to say something than nothing at all.”

Anneliese was first diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2014 but five months after receiving the all clear she started getting pain in her lower back. It took Anneliese another nine months to convince oncologists to look further into it and an MRI scan confirmed her cancer had returned.

She had surgery in May to put pins in her leg when surgeons accidently nicked a vein and Anneliese had to fight for her life after receiving a blood transfusion. Subsequent scans uncovered the cancer had spread to her lungs and liver.

“It’s very easy for people to say ‘you can beat this because you beat it the last time’ but they don’t understand secondary cancer, that incurable really does mean incurable”, said Anneliese.

“I’m tagged in so many posts that say this thing is going to cure my cancer but it’s not, my cancer isn’t going anywhere, my reality is very different and I think it’s important to get that out there.

“Malmesbury has been very supportive of us, I wish I knew even more people here but the people that we do know have been massively supportive of us and the Make Malmesbury Even Better page has been phenomenal in supporting us.”

The family’s focus is now on getting the most out of the time they have left together. “We’re trying to think about things to do together, my most important thing is to make memories with Mia”, said Anneliese.

“I’m also thinking about writing a bucket list of things she can do that we won’t get the chance to do together, like places I’ve been she can go there and stand in the spot that I stood in, look at what I looked at and understand why I loved that place.

“We both try to be very positive about it and that’s very hard for Mia. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like for Mia to be left behind but I know we are trying to be very positive about the time we have left.

“I’ll keep doing whatever treatment I can to keep me going but I’ll only do it as long as it’s not impacting on Mia’s life because if the side effects are so bad that we don’t have quality time together then it’s not worth it and that’s a hard decision for anyone to make, to stop treatment, but if we have to I will.”

Mia said that she was very proud of the way her mother is facing her situation. Search for Wonder Woman in a Wheelchair on Facebook to follow Anneliese’s blog.