A mum who fought breast cancer won the lottery a year later - and said she'd always had a feeling she would 'come into money'.
Tracy Field, 51, was working as a cleaner and had been through one of the toughest ordeals of her lifetime when suddenly her lucky day arrived.
In the space of just a year-and-a-half, the mum-of-two from Benfleet, Essex, went from being diagnosed with stage three breast cancer to winning more than £2million.
Although she was shocked by her win, she said "there was always just a funny feeling that something was going to happen. I always felt it."
Tracy Field told Essex Live how she bought her first ever lottery ticket 25 years ago, and began buying two a week ever since- always with the same seven numbers.
In February 2007, Tracy found a lump. She went to the doctors and after an operation and a scan, she was told she had stage three breast cancer.
Through the next year of her life she would fight the cancer, determined to live her life like she always had.
Tracy said: "I found a lump and I went to the doctors and had a scan," Tracy said.
"It wasn't until they did the surgery and I found out I was stage three.
"I'm a firm believer it's in your mindset. I remember saying to the consultant 'I'm 39 years old, please do not tell me I'm going to die.'
"I said that's not an option, what are we going to do about this? I wasn't prepared to die."
Shortly after finding out, Tracy began six months of chemotherapy, then she went straight into another four weeks of radiotheraphy.
Throughout everything, Tracy was determined to go on as normal.
"I still took the dog for a walk. It used to take two minutes to take them to the park but it would take me three quarters of an hour while I was having the treatment to take them to the park," she said.
"I wouldn't stop doing those things. Obviously some things changed but I tried to not change. It was very hard.
"I thought maybe there's a mistake."
By July 2008, Tracy's life was starting to get back on track.
Throughout all her treatment, she continued to buy her lottery tickets.
She always gets her tickets on a Tuesday during her weekly shop in Sainsbury's - one for the Wednesday lotto draw and one for the Saturday lotto draw.
Normally, she checks the numbers for both tickets on a Sunday.
But on July, 30, 2008, something made her check them that Wednesday instead.
"For some reason, on the Wednesday I went on the computer. I just went onto the bit where it comes up with the numbers and I crossed it all off," she said.
"At first I thought I only had five of the numbers and I was like 'oh my God' and then I looked at the last number and I thought oh really? I was quite shocked.
"It tells you how to claim on the back of the card so I rang the number and no one picked up.
"It did confirm that those were the winning numbers so I knew there hadn't been a glitch. I thought maybe there's a mistake."
Tracy added: "Just as life was starting to get back to normal, I won the lottery. It couldn't have been a better time.
"Every cloud has a silver lining and that was mine. I went through what I went through and I was rewarded I guess."
Tracy had just won £2,561,593.
She couldn't believe her eyes and immediately called her best friend at the time to come and check the numbers.
"I rang her and I said come around, I need to tell you something. She rang up the number too and checked the numbers as well and she was just screaming," she said.
Tracy was in such shock afterwards she didn't know how to spend the money.
"I went to Tescos and bought my dog Lucy some dog biscuits. I needed to buy something but I didn't know what to buy so that was what I bought.
"Sometimes you go buy things just because you can but I would only buy it if it's something I generally wanted or needed. I have one car and I do not need two cars."
Even though it took Tracy a long time to digest the news, there was always a part of her that thought something was going to happen.
She said: "I just always had a really funny feeling that - maybe not necessary the lottery - but I knew I was going to come into money.
"Obviously I worked, I had got young children and I was a single parent but there was always this element that the hardship wouldn't last forever.
"I was obviously very shocked when I did but there was always just a funny feeling that something was going to happen. I always felt it."
For the next few days after winning the lottery, Tracy didn't go into work, Cleaneasy, where she cleaned a bank and distributed catalogues.
"I was dumbstruck. It was ages and ages before it registered in my head," she said.
"I didn't go to work for the first few days - I had to explain to them why I wasn't going to work and I said I wasn't feeling well.
"Then I said obviously I'm not coming back and I told them why."
Tracy gave up her job cleaning but continued to hand out catalogues for the next three years because she enjoyed "a bit of a chit chat" with her customers.
"It was quite a long time till I registered. Even now there's still that element when you go to buy something and you think can I actually afford that?"
"It made a massive difference"
But the biggest change winning the lottery had for Tracy, was that she could put her health first.
"It meant that if I ever needed any treatment, I wouldn't need to worry - I would just pay for it," she explained. "That was the biggest thing for me.
"My health is so important, I was too young to die. Even now if I go to the doctors, I say I want a private refferal.
She said she had never struggled for money as she had always worked.
"It wasn't a struggle but we always just about made ends meet. It made a massive difference, I didn't need to go to work and I moved into a bigger house."
Not long after winning, Tracy bought a bigger house and later bought her two sons, Ryan, 27, and Ross, 31, houses in 2009.
"I have bought a house, a new car. I haven't bought anything extraordinary," she said.
"I took my mum, my aunt and best friend at the time to Cyprus, we had a beautiful hotel. I also went to New York at Christmas.
"I have since been on lots of different holidays all around the world that we would probably have never been able to have."
Tracy's favourite holiday so far was to the Maldives in 2016.
She said: "They have been holidays of a lifetime. I was able to go to the Maldives and it looked so beautiful, like a paradise. It was a magical, I scuba dived with whale sharks.
"Everybody was really calm, there were four or five of them and they were just not bothered by everybody. That was probably my most special memory."
Tracy and her partner Brian Bishop, 55, also go on holidays in their motor-home all over the UK.
And she still continues to buy her two lottery tickets every week.
Tracy also attends lottery parties and events several times a year which are organised for lottery winners to help charities.
"They run workshops and they pick out some charities that need help and lottery winners all volunteer to go to it and help.
"One wanted a summer house and we went and painted them as ginger bread houses with all the bits on.
"I love it, I'm really into that. It's so nice to give something back."
After the first year and a half of fighting breast cancer, Tracy continued to see a consultant for regular checks, as well as her monogram and MRI.
And to her delight, she was discharged last year.
