The day after my birthday three years ago, I started having visions. It felt as though honey was pouring out of my eyes. I’d been diagnosed with breast cancer 18 months previously, but after treatment I’d thought I was on the road to recovery. Four days later, I was told I had secondary breast cancer in the brain.

I survived the first operation to remove the malignant tumour, but within weeks it had grown back, despite radiotherapy. It was removed again, and shortly after that, in October 2015, I was told I was dying. I was 42. The doctors said there was no more they could do for me. No one expected the cancer not to return; I was given “months, not years” to live and began preparing for my last Christmas.

It was my idea to go to my own funeral; I wanted it to be a celebration of my life. I had a strong desire to be with my friends one last time. After all, who gets the opportunity to do that? It’s too late when you’re dead.

Three weeks later, on a blustery November day in Stoke, we gathered in a restaurant called The Church. Two hundred and fifty people came. There were friends from primary school, university pals, clients and colleagues from the advertising agency where I worked; even my kick-boxing instructor. Sadly, my mother, Carole, couldn’t bear the thought of coming. My father, Alan, was there, but he found it horrendous. Having lost my sister Steph to meningitis many years before, he was terrified of losing me, too.

It sounds shallow, but I felt dreadfully self-conscious about my bloated pillow face – the result of the steroids I was taking. I refused to have pictures taken of me. I knew I was dying, and it was important for me not to be remembered like that.

As guests arrived, we took pictures of them and pinned them to a “Tree of Life”, along with memories people had written down. A college friend told me that I was the first feminist she’d met. Another wrote: “I simply don’t know what I’m going to do without you.” There were lighter moments, too – recollections of paintballing sessions in a Welsh valley and trips to Las Vegas. An editor friend mocked up a cover of my favourite magazine, with my face on it.

It was important for me that it was a proper celebration, so we laid on food, drink and music before the eulogies. My husband, Dean, and others shared their thoughts about me and what I’d meant to them.

I felt peaceful and accepting; as a Christian I felt secure in the knowledge I was going to heaven. But as uplifting as it was, everyone around me was upset. It was a shock when I saw photos afterwards – there had been a superficial air of celebration, but when I saw the faces of my friends they looked so pained.

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The day after “the funeral” I woke up and thought: “That was the high and now I’ll fade away.” My oncologist told me that I would start to sleep more, and then sleep more than I was awake, and then eventually go into a hospice to die. I didn’t have a bucket list; I simply wanted everyday life with Dean to continue for as long as possible.

But even though I had stopped treatment, my tumour did not grow back. Day by day, I began to start living a normal life again, although I was plagued by fears that I was going to die. Even the tiniest pain in my knee would make me think the cancer had returned.

Now I’ve celebrated a milestone five-year anniversary since my original diagnosis, and my oncologist considers me cured. He said he has known only one other patient in more than 20 years who overcame what I did. I attribute my recovery to the brain surgeon who saved my life, and my belief in God.

The day of my funeral was overwhelming. I felt I was floating on a cloud of love. No one feels I put them through pain that I didn’t need to, although I feel guilty sometimes at how much my loved ones have suffered. When you’ve looked death in the face and you are somehow allowed to step back, you are just overwhelmed with gratitude. Glorious normality is what I live for now – even though I am, in the words of my palliative care nurse, the miracle lady.

• As told to Lebby Eyres

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