A woman who thought she was going to die when she was diagnosed with cancer rejected chemo to travel the world.
Katie Marshall, 36, was diagnosed with skin cancer in January 2018 and was given a devastating double-blow when doctors found she also had breast cancer just three months later.
She had been on a 4,000 mile road trip with partner Nicola Rowbotham, 33, in the U.S. at the time and had to return to Manchester for urgent surgery to remove the tumour in May 2018.
The surgery, at Manchester's Christie Cancer Hospital, was successful.
But Katie refused chemotherapy following the surgery, which she said was "more terrifying" than the cancer diagnosis, and opted for a natural course of treatment.
After spending time deciding to change their lifestyles to incorporate Katie's new holistic form of cancer treatment.
And for the last eight months Katie and Nicola have been living in a campervan in the Canadian wilderness without internet, WiFi or electricity.
The besotted couple managed to sneak into the country just before lockdown in March after quitting their jobs and selling all of their belongings.
"When I got my diagnosis, the thought of chemotherapy was more terrifying than the diagnosis itself," Katie, from Hattersley, Tameside, said.
"I had a very supportive oncologist who was there to answer all of my concerns. I was offered chemo because of my age and because my breast cancer was aggressive.
"I had surgery to remove the tumour and had an agonising wait for a number of results from the biopsy that lasted around three months.
"They found a lesion on my spine and I was tested for bone cancer. Fortunately that came back negative - they found a micrometastasis which is a small collection of cancer cells from the original tumour.
"That was successfully removed but it was petrifying to think that I might die at 34.
"Ever since the trauma of being twice diagnosed with cancer, three months apart, I struggled with anxiety and insomnia for around a year.
"I now see the trauma of the whole experience as a gentle steer into living freely on the road, hopefully for the rest of my days.
"Both of us feel whole now, like we have lived in the exact way we wanted to and we have been able to navigate all of the unexpected challenges thrown at us.
"This certainly helps us make the most of every living memory and being in the now."
Katie said she has "never felt more alive" than she does now and only needs to go for check-ups twice a year to make sure the tumour hasn't grown.
She opted for a "wellness path" over conventional treatment, turning to yoga, meditation and herbal medicine which allowed her to travel again.
Katie said: "I feel proud that I was brave enough to decline conventional treatment.
"I've never felt more alive than I do now, cancer folded me inside out emotionally and I was able to assess everything in my life that was causing me disharmony in body and soul.
"Having a shock as potent as cancer pushed me into a full-blown analysis of what I was putting in and taking out of my body, physically and mentally."
The couple, both former IT analysts, travelled to Canada in early March in what they hoped would be the first of many stops in their travels.
They landed in Vancouver on the day the Canadian border closed to international visitors and made it by the "skin of their teeth".
The pair have been camped up in a small mountain town hidden away in British Columbia called Skwxwú7mesh - simplified in English as 'Squamish'.
"We had plans to drive our camper down to Oregon and California - eight months later, we're still there," Katie said. "During this time, we have not had internet access nor electricity or running water.
"All we have is land, rain forest and 'pit toilets' which do not flush.
"We have learned to forage, build campfires, chop wood, play the guitar, the ukulele, harmonica, hula hooping and poi. We've also been writing a memoir of our travels."
After meeting at a house party in Newcastle in 2010, Kate and Nicola have visited 36 different countries and travelled more than 200,000 miles together since 2015.
They have gone from dog sledding in the Arctic Circle, to dodging lava from the erupting Fuego Volcano in Guatemala.
They watched the ball drop on New Year’s in Times Square in New York, wandered through the Forbidden City in Beijing, and saw the northern lights in Iceland.
Nicola, from Hartlepool, Teeside, said: "When we had corporate jobs and a fancy apartment, we filled every room with enormous world maps.
"We'd often vocally declare all of the places in the world we wanted to go and we even put stickers on worldly destinations on our huge canvas map.
"As soon as we realized we were working to live and couldn't afford to go out to the places we lived beside, we knew something wasn't right.
"The travel bucket list was ever-growing and we knew five weeks of annual leave wasn't going to cut it so we arranged for a leave of absence from work to sample the traveling life and we have never looked back since."
