“I was told I had three months to live,” she said

Janine didn’t accept that, told her two daughters it would all be fine and buckled down for the fight of her life. She underwent 16 rounds of chemo over the coming months.

The following year she was diagnosed with a stage 3 super aggressive form of breast cancer, requiring intravenous radiation therapy. Just another hurdle for Janine to jump. 

“I was so radioactive I thought I’d glow in the dark. My kids weren’t allowed to cuddle me, ” she said. 

This Mother’s Day Janine will delight in embracing Tahlia, now 14, and Jade, 12. She’s now in remission and back in training to revive the fitness small business she put on hold five years ago. 

“My lifestyle saved my life,” Janine said, attributing her recovery to being super healthy before and after her diagnosis.

“They told me they’ve never seen someone recover from what I had.” 

Janine’s hero is Olga Forner – the pocket-size dynamo president of Can Assist, a volunteer group that provides cancer patients with financial support. 

The killer for Griffin patients is travel, and Janine says Can Assist helped her out with thousands for trips to Sydney for treatment. 

“People don’t really think about Can Assist until someone in their family gets sick. But we need donations now as we’re helping more than 100 families. We rely on community support to keep going,” Olga said.

Olga said patients have had to fork out as much as $2,000 for last minute flights to major cities, and even more to get partners and kids to visit them.

Olga has held hands with thousands of cancer patients over the years, and admits it takes its toll. 

“As you get older, you become more fragile. When I see young parents and kids, it really does get to me and I always want to do more than we can.”

Janine is now 51, but looks a decade younger. When The Area News did a story on her three years ago, she wore a wig, but this time was able to show off her own shiny golden locks.

“It’s such a relief to have our mum back, the way she was,” Tahlia, her daughter, said . She wants to work in medical science when she grows up, inspired in part by her mother’s miracle. 

Donations to Can Assist can be made through their website