Lindsay Nicholson's guilt at beating cancer when it killed husband John Merritt and daughter Ellie Lindsay Nicholson is Editorial Director of Good Housekeeping magazine Her first husband John Merritt died of leukaemia in 1992, when he was 35 Their eldest daughter Ellie died of leaukemia in 1998, when she was nine Lindsay was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006 She is now remarried and five-years clear By Lindsay Nicholson Lindsay Nicholson, whose husband and daughter both died of leukaemia You imagine that the moment I was told I was five years clear of cancer would be, well, more momentous. Maybe a fanfare would be played over loudspeakers as it does when a Ryanair flight lands on time. Or the medical team who had been treating me would break into a round of joyous, spontaneous applause. What happened was that part-way through a medical check-up, my consultant looked up, peered at me over his specs and said: 'Oh, I think I should probably fire you today.' Seeing confusion cross my face, he explained: 'It's been five years since you finished active treatment for breast cancer. You don't have to come here any more...' He paused, and added: 'Well done!' He didn't say cured, of course, they never do. All he was saying was that I didn't have to go through the repeated anxiety of six-monthly check-ups. I glanced at the door. Would it be rude to just walk out? Then, almost as an afterthought, he cleared his throat and said: 'Of course, we are hearing good results for women who take the anti-cancer drugs for ten years rather than just the usual five? Could you handle that? Five more years of remembering to take a tablet every day, of side-effects such as hot flushes and thinning hair, of my bones being thinned by the same life-saving drug - anastrozole - that will permit me to live long enough to fall over and break a hip. Of course, though, I said yes. After all, suppose the cancer still came back, as happened to my dear friend Kate, who died almost three years to the day after she had been given her own 'well done' speech. So, in truth, my five-year 'all clear' was a bit of an anti-climax. Even when I did finally head for the door, the consultant added: 'Let's get that mole checked out. It's probably nothing, but...' The thing about a cancer diagnosis is that it never finishes with you. You are never free from worry and if you're not fretting about a mole, it's a cough that seems to take a long time to go. Or a worrying headache. There is endless anxiety until you eventually realise the only way it ends is if the cancer wins. I know all about that. I was in my early 30s and the mother of a toddler when my first husband, the investigative journalist John Merritt, was diagnosed with leukaemia, a blood cancer. He died two years after his diagnosis in 1990, when I was pregnant with our second child. And I used to tell myself, and told the children, that that was it. Our family had had their quota of bad luck. We could all relax and be happy now. The respite didn't last long. Five years later, when she was just nine, my eldest daughter Ellie was diagnosed with leukaemia as well. A million-to-one chance, the doctors said. But not zero. Because it never is zero. Lindsay Nicholson, editor of Good Housekeeping magazine, and investigative journalist John Merritt, on their wedding day Since I was a single parent, my younger daughter Hope had to go to live with my mother 50 miles away in Essex for months while I spent every day and every night with Ellie at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, sleeping on a sofa next to her bed. It was agony being apart from Hope, who was only four, but Ellie needed me more. She fought bravely and I placed all my faith in the fact that great progress was being made in the field of childhood cancers. But it wasn't to be for her. And after she died in 1998 a light went out in my world. John and Lindsay's daughter Ellie, who died of leukaemia in 1998 aged nine Incredibly, my surviving daughter Hope and I battled on. She came back home to North London again and started at the local school where Ellie had been a pupil, which was bittersweet for her. I carried on working - to keep a roof over our heads - and at weekends family and friends organised a rota to make sure we were never alone. Even so, Hope used to say to me: 'Mummy, there are too few of us to be a family!' Then, amazingly, I met a good and loving man, Mark, now 47 - the estate agent I had hired to sell my house - who was prepared to take on me and my bereft daughter, who had lost her sister and never known her father. We married in 2004 at St Brides Church, Fleet Street, and the choir sang George Harrison's Here Comes The Sun because it really did feel as if the sun had come out at last. But cancer hadn't done with our family, even then. Two-and-a-half years after our wedding, I felt, well, not so much a lump as a thickening in my breast tissue and suddenly our newly-constructed family plunged again down the rabbit hole marked chemo, hospitals, surgery, survival statistics. It was all so horribly familiar, even down to the disinfectant smells and the plastic ID bracelets, that I was immediately cast back into those dark days when I had slept next to Ellie's bed, or whiled away hours doing crossword puzzles with John while he had chemo. My emotions simply shut down, which seemed to be the only way to cope. Numb, I sleepwalked through the treatments. My only comfort being that Mark was now on the scene to take care of Hope when - and this seemed inevitable to me - she was orphaned. Thoughts of survival seemed a long way off. And, in my experience, never happened anyway. Ellie and Hope Merritt, pictured before Ellie's death from leukaemia, the same cancer which killed the girls' father John Merritt But then the pattern started to change. One thing you discover when you live in Cancer Town is the less interest the doctors show in you, the more likely it is they think you are going to survive. One thing you discover when you live in Cancer Town is the less interest the doctors show in you, the more likely it is they think you are going to survive By now I was discovering there are hundreds of different kinds of breast cancer - as is true of most cancers - and mine was of the kind that responds very well to treatment. More than nine out of every ten of women diagnosed with my type live five years and beyond. Of course that still means 10 per cent don't. An enormous wave of guilt engulfed me when I realised I would probably survive when Ellie and John hadn't. I actually felt embarrassed at not being the most worrying and upsetting case in the consultant's waiting room, even though I was still seriously ill. Lindsay and John on holiday with their eldest daughter Ellie. After Lindsay was given five years clear of cancer she felt 'an enormous wave of guilt' at the thought of surviving when Ellie and John hadn't I had three major operations and then was frequently hospitalised with severe reactions to the chemo. But I refused to allow myself to feel any emotions such as pain or fear because whatever I had to face was only a fraction of what I had seen my poor Ellie go through. As a result, and my family would agree, I was permanently bad-tempered. But I refused to allow myself to feel any emotions such as pain or fear because whatever I had to face was only a fraction of what I had seen my poor Ellie go through Eventually, I finished up with seven solid weeks of radiation treatment and I was done - apart from the drugs, which, along with all the other delightful side-effects made my toenails fall off. What's more, with seemingly every check-up there was some kind of scare or a set of test results that didn't look right and needed to be done again. And while I was going through all this, other people I knew were having their own cancer scares and diagnoses. One good friend was diagnosed and went through the most draconian treatment, but still relapsed. I went to his funeral, my hair barely grown back, and looking around the church the line between those who lived and those who died seemed so fragile. It was a wake-up call I needed to start taking more care of myself. Lindsay Nicholson, pictured during her treatment for cancer, with her youngest daughter, Hope, and her second husband, Mark I wouldn't say for sure it was the stress of John and Ellie's death that led to my cancer diagnosis. After all, one in eight women in Britain will get breast cancer. But I do know that at the point where I was diagnosed, I had been running on empty for some time. Grieving, working and caring for a distressed child hadn't left much time for healthy eating, relaxation or exercise. At first, I tried some extreme stuff - a vegan diet, for instance, that drove my family mad and resulted in me mainly eating chips and houmous. But, eventually, I thought about some exercise. Walking appealed because it's free, doubles up as transport and strengthens the bones weakened by cancer drugs. I read a compelling statistic that said walking 30 minutes a day could reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence by 40 per cent. Lindsay, pictured with her eldest daughter Hope, says that after her husband and daughter died she 'ran on empty' for some time At first, it was just walking the dogs. Then I heard about the London MoonWalk from my mother, who had completed an overnight half-marathon at the age of 69. The MoonWalks raise funds for breast cancer charities - and the knowledge that they had raised the money to rebuild the Bristol Cancer Centre (now renamed the Penny Brohn Centre) where I had fled for much needed respite during my treatment, was the clincher. As was the fact that the many thousands of women who do these walks, many of whom are breast cancer survivors, all do so wearing decorated bras. The second most terrifying aspects of a breast cancer diagnosis - once you get over the fact you may die - is the thought of disfigurement. I had been remarried for only two-and-a-half years and I remember thinking that if I survived, our physical relationship would certainly be over. The booklet I was given to read by a nurse on the day I was diagnosed warned that many men are put off by their partner's scars. Luckily, it was an incredibly outdated booklet as nearly all women now are offered reconstruction, in any case. I only needed a lumpectomy with lymph glad removal. My scar is barely visible. Even so, I'm a middle-aged woman. Could I really walk around London in a bra? Well, yes, as it turned out, I could. Then, earlier this year, I signed up to do three marathons in five weeks. I have already done the London one and have Edinburgh and Iceland to go. My walking partner is my cousin Sue, who has also had breast cancer - twice. Three cancers between us might be regarded as a good reason not to take on an extreme physical challenge in our underwear but, honestly, there are other problems for us on a day-to-day basis. Such as how to fit in training around full-time jobs, which kind of socks are least likely to cause blisters, plus the fact that as I'm 5ft 9in and she's only 5ft, we take different length strides, so find it hard to keep pace with each other. On the plus side, taking on any physical challenge means getting to know your body better. The treatment for cancer revealed to me I faint at blood tests and get sick with chemo, but the marathons have made me believe I can trust my body to go very long distances. So, even though my five-year survival may have been something of an anti-climax, I am determined the finish of my third marathon in Iceland will be the real celebration! I don't know why I got a very treatable form of cancer when two people I loved so dearly were not so lucky. The experience of their deaths and my 'near miss' inspires me to seize every moment - not just for myself but for those for whom medical science can't yet save. To sponsor Lindsay, visit http://www.walkthewalkfundraising.org/good_housekeeping_moonwalk_2013_team