For Nikki Welsh, her focus is to live long enough to see her daughter walk down the aisle on 3 September.
“That’s my bucket list, my goal, it gives me a reason and a purpose to be here, I’ve just got to get there.”
Nikki was diagnosed with terminal cancer earlier this year, and although doctors can’t give her a timeframe, they say she doesn’t have long.
“I had no symptoms leading up to being diagnosed. That sort of made it a bit more like ‘hang on I haven’t been sick’,” she says.
Nikki is well-known in the community for her kind nature and ability to help others. She says she always has her “finger in the pie” when it comes to fundraising for others.
“I’m lucky that my job has been a really good vehicle and allowed me access to be able to help people.”
At Life Pharmacy Prices, formerly Prices Pharmacy, where she has worked as the business manager for the past 12 years, she is known affectionately by her co-workers as the “work mum”.
Nikki was camping with her family in Kaiteriteri in January when she first had pain in the side of her chest. Thinking she better get it checked, she drove with her husband to Nelson Hospital where a blood clot in her lung was discovered.
“Obviously, that was a bit of a concern for someone who’s usually pretty healthy, so I had a CT scan and an x-ray. The next day I was diagnosed with cancer.”
At that stage doctors knew that it was in the stomach lining and the lungs but didn’t know where the cancer had originated. It was later found to be pancreatic cancer which Nikki says has no survival rate.
“That all hit home.”
The cancer has since spread to her bones, leaving Nikki in constant pain, which she says is nearly impossible to manage.
She says the hardest thing for her was having to resign from her job, which she loved.
“That team, we all treat each other like family, and it’s always been like that. We’ve always known if you’ve had a bad day you can go to work and somebody’s there that will make you feel better which has been great, I’m so proud of them.”
Although the journey is rough, Nikki wakes up every day feeling grateful.
“Every day I get up and put my face on, do my hair, put my perfume, earrings and jewelry on. I wake up feeling like rubbish but as soon as I’ve had my shower and done all my bits, I feel much better.”
She says people often say she looks amazing.
“I don’t feel amazing, but I like to take pride in how I look, that has got me through every day and made me grateful that I can still do it. My daughter is a make-up artist and said, ‘mum when you get to the stage that you can’t do it, I’ll do it for you’.”
She says her family are “broken” following the shock diagnosis. Work colleagues have organised a fundraiser to allow a member of Nikki’s family to take a day off work each week to spend with her.
“I’ve got to the point that I don’t want to be alone, so to be able to pay them to be here with me would mean the world, they all have bills to pay and households to run.”
Nikki’s family is no stranger to tragedy, having lost her nephew to leukaemia two years ago and the death of her brother earlier this year. She also lost a close work colleague, young mum Chloe Mytton to cancer, as well as two other staff members passing away during the same time period.
“It’s been two years of just a really hard time,” Nikki says.
“I had staff coming in saying ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me’, I had to explain to them that it’s grief they’re dealing with, and now they have to deal with this.
“Sometimes you just need a hug.”
To donate to Nikki and her family visit Givealittle
