Gill Hunter battled cancer - now she is helping others in their darkest days

Now she is supporting others by volunteering for Maggie’s, the cancer caring centre which helped her through her darkest days.

READ MORE: My 'indigestion' turned out to be cancer

IT WAS a nurse, during a routine bloods appointment, who first suggested to Gill Hunter she might benefit from a visit to the Maggie’s Centre.

“I remember saying – why on earth would I want to go there? It’s full of sick people with cancer,” recalls Gill.

“She just looked at me. I hadn’t come to terms it with, you understand? As far as I was concerned, I’d had cancer for four hours.”

She pauses. “But when I walked through the doors of the Gartnavel centre, I thought – why have I not come here before?”

Gill, who lives in Clarkston with her daughter Lucy, 19, and son Adam, 18, had none of the typical symptoms of bowel cancer.

So when, in February 2013, she started being violently sick for hours at a time doctors put it down to a sudden bout of food poisoning.

Three weeks later, however, the vomiting began again and this time, she was taken into hospital and tests revealed a blockage in the bowel.

“I felt so ill – I’d been vomiting for four days, I couldn’t eat or drink so I had tubes in me, it was so painful,” says Gill.

READ MORE: My 'indigestion' turned out to be cancer

“When the consultant told me I had a tumour, I was almost relieved that finally, we knew what it was. I just wanted them to get on and fix it so I could feel normal again.”

After surgery to remove the tumour and two-thirds of her bowel, Gill slowly recovered in the Victoria Infirmary’s high dependency ward.

But six days later, she fell ill with peritonitis, a potentially fatal inflammation of the abdomen, and pneumonia.

“It was a huge blow, a real step backwards,” she admits. “I was exhausted and still couldn’t eat normally. A nurse helped me get into the shower to wash my hair, just to try and make me feel a bit better, and the sheer effort made me collapse and I had to have a blood transfusion.”

Gill received a second, devastating blow several days later with the news that the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and she would require chemotherapy.

“It was a shock, and very difficult to tell the kids,” she says. “It had all happened so quickly – and ironically, I was probably fitter than I’d ever been. I’d lost weight, started going to the gym, had a personal trainer.

“Being fit and healthy helped me survive this, but when I started it all, I had no idea what I would soon be in training for….”

Gradually, Gill began to recover. She spent 29 days in hospital, most of them in HDU, and began chemotherapy in April 2013.

READ MORE: My 'indigestion' turned out to be cancer

But the drama was far from over. Following further surgery, pouches containing septic fluid developed on her abdomen and Gill fell seriously ill.

“Despite everything I’d already been through, that was the sickest I’d ever felt,” she recalls. “That night was the worst. They had to put three drains in to take it all away, and it was really grim.

“I really didn’t think I was going to make it.”

But once again, Gill recovered, and she was discharged from hospital on December 23.

“It was quite a year,” she smiles, before laughing out loud at her own understatement.

“I wrote everything down, to try to make sense of it all and reading it back, it feels like it happened to someone else.”

Family – in particular her mum Kay, sister Elaine and both Lucy and Adam – were Gill’s ‘rock’ through it all, she says.

READ MORE: My 'indigestion' turned out to be cancer

“The kids’ dad and I are divorced but we have stayed good friends and Dougie was a fantastic help,” she says.

“My mum was amazing, and Elaine just dropped everything to help – I’ll always be grateful for that.”

Gill says the support she received from Maggie’s was invaluable.

“You can talk to people at Maggie’s, without feeling guilty that you are upsetting them, or scaring them,” she says. “You can have a cry, too.

“The support groups, like the Look Good Feel Better beauty workshops, are fantastic – we had such a laugh.

“Now that I’m out the other side, I couldn’t just say thanks and walk away.”

Gill is on the volunteer fundraising board for the charity, which provides practical and emotional support for people with cancer, and their friends and families.

She is also a community speaker, attending events and workshops to share her story.

Gill’s most recent scan was clear and she is fit and healthy, back at work at Grant Thornton in Queen Street, where she offers wealth advice to a range of clients, including lottery winners, and looking forward to the women’s 10k on Sunday. She has already raised £4000 for Maggie’s and hopes to bank more on the day.

“I hate running,” she says, cheerfully. “But I want to do it because there was a time when I thought I might never be able to do it again.

“I still can’t believe, sometimes, that I got through it, that I’m back at work in the job I love, fit and healthy and running and swimming again.”

She adds: “People at a much earlier stage than me have told me they can’t believe I have had bowel cancer because I look so well. They say that gives them a bit of hope.

“And if I can do that for people, then why wouldn’t I?

“So many people did so much to help me that being able to give something back by volunteering for Maggie’s is the least I can do.”

You can support Gill through her Just Giving page, or by getting in touch with Maggie’s Glasgow. Or cheer her on at the Great Women’s 10k, which takes place on Sunday. Enter or find out more at greatrun.org/womens10k