‘Cancer diagnosis at 14 inspired my to become a doctor’

A young woman who was inspired to pursue a degree in medicine after facing cancer herself as a teenager is celebrating graduating from university.

Diagnosed with an aggressive soft tissue cancer at the age of 14, Ellie Waters-Barnes was given a one in five chance of survival.

But the experience helped forge her career path and she said had given her a “superpower” that not every medic was able to tap in to.

Now 25 and still struggling in some respects physically, she said her own experience of undergoing treatment gave her a better understanding what patients were going through.

She said news that she had stage four alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma in September 2015 turned her life upside down.

“I went from being a very healthy, fit teenage girl to having this very intensive treatment that made me very ill,” Waters-Barnes said.

She underwent 18 months of treatment at Queen’s Medical Centre in Nottingham.

“I lost lots of weight, lost my hair, I had to be tube fed,” she said.

“The first nine months was intensive chemotherapy and then I had 28 sessions of radiotherapy, and then I had a year of maintenance chemotherapy.

“I’m all clear now, thank goodness, but at the time the cancer was very aggressive. I feel very lucky to be here today.”