‘A cancer diagnosis at 14 inspired me to become a doctor’

A young woman who was diagnosed with cancer herself as a teenager, inspired to pursue medical school, graduated from university.

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

But the experience helped spark her career path and she says it gave her a “superpower” that every drug couldn’t help.

Now 25 and still physically struggling with some issues, she says she just graduated from Keele University and that her own experience of treating patients has given her a better understanding of what patients are going through.

In the year In September 2015, the news that she was diagnosed with stage four alveolar rhabdomyosarcoma turned her life upside down.

“I went from being a very healthy, fit teenage girl to this serious treatment that was so painful,” Waters-Barnes said.

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

“I lost a lot of weight, I lost my hair, I had to be fed through a tube,” she says.

“The first nine months were heavy chemotherapy treatments and then I had 28 radiotherapy treatments, and then I had chemotherapy for a year.

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