The Fairy Meadow mum-of-four was working full time, juggling another round of remote learning at her kids' schools and preschool drops offs with social occasions and preparations for Christmas.

"I had my daughter in preschool, and they're always sick, so I kept getting cold after cold after cold, and [my partner] Dallas wasn't getting sick at all, just me," she said.

"But I just thought 'oh life will go back to normal soon and I'll get better'."

But in the first week of December, her idea of normal life was shattered.

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"I went out with my friends for a Christmas lunch, but I remember feeling a bit off, so left early," she said.

"Then the next morning, I woke up and I couldn't breathe. It wasn't just wheezing, my chest couldn't expand."

By the middle of the day, Clare had called her sister to drive her to hospital and found herself sitting in the emergency department being told she had cancer.

"They diagnosed me in emergency, so they took my blood and I remember the doctor said to me as she told me, this will be life changing," she said.

"My life got turned upside down in the space of a moment."

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Clare had acute myeloid leukaemia, an aggressive cancer which develops in blood cells in the bone marrow. Cells called myeloblasts or leukaemic blasts crowd the bone marrow, preventing it from making normal blood cells, and can also spill out into the bloodstream and circulate around the body.

"It's a very aggressive and quick form of leukaemia," Clare said.

"I was sick maybe a month or two months before the diagnosis and there was no glaring signs and symptoms - I could explain everything away. I thought I was just stuck in a rut."

By the time she arrived in Wollongong Hopsital the cancer had damaged her lungs and spleen; overnight her spleen ruptured, her body went into shock, and shortly afterwards she was put into a coma.

For three and a half months, Clare was on life support as doctors and nurses in Wollongong's intensive care unit (ICU) tried to give her body the best chance at healing and fighting the cancer.

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While she was there, COVID-19 cases began surging, which meant no visits for Clare's kids or partner, Dallas Burnes.

Dallas, an SES manager, describes this period as "pretty confronting".

"On the day Clare got sick, I had been deployed to Wagga to deal with floods out there, and she was tired when I left, but we have four kids and life is pretty tiring," he said.

"I got her a coffee, said 'see you honey, I'll chat to you when I get down to Wagga' and hopped in the car."

"Then I got a call that night, saying Clare has been admitted to hospital with respiratory issues, and then to say she had leukaemia and was extremely ill. On my drive back early the next morning, the surgical registrar rang me and asked me to pull over - and he let me know they'd just [resuscitated] Clare and things were not very good."

Mr Burnes said he was supportive of the no visiting rules which came in as COVID spiked, even though they meant the family couldn't see Clare at while she was fighting for her life.

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"I was supportive, because the last thing I wanted to do was visit her to make myself feel better and possibly pass something on," he said.

"But it was pretty awful, I got a lot of late night phone calls, and a couple of those were really hard, because not only were they saying 'the woman you love is possibly not going to be there in the morning' but you can't even go in and visit anyway."

Clare missed Christmas, her own birthday, as well one of her step-daughter's and Dallas' birthdays, and even the couple's planned wedding.

Around mid-February, she was conscious "here and there", and the hospital arranged a special family visit to mark her daughter Neave's fifth birthday.

"It was lovely, and so incredibly tough at the same time, that Neave got to go and see her mum for the first time in months," Dallas said.

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For Clare, the period when she was waking up was "shocking" and "very strange".

"After I woke up I'd lost all my ability to do anything," she said. "I had to learn to breathe on my own and swallow again, I couldn't sit up without being supported.

"I remember getting very cranky, because I wanted to go to the bathroom, but they said 'you can't walk'. I said 'what do you mean I can't walk?' but I had muscle wastage from being in a coma for so long."

Nine months on, Clare is in remission, but her health is precarious and she is waiting to hear whether she will have a risky bone marrow transplant. She has been back into hospital several times for a month or more at a time for chemotherapy, which the family says causes fresh trauma every time.

"We are acutely aware that life is never going to be quite the same," Dallas said.

Even in this limbo, the family has decided to try to start living "normal life" again.

Clare has been able to return a couple of times to her favourite beach with her dogs, is cooking some meals for her family and recently managed to go to Symbio with her kids.

Next week, they will depart on a road trip to the Sunshine Coast that was planned years ago and got cancelled due to COVID.

"We're making plans to travel in January too - we're good at booking accommodation that doesn't have a penalty if we cancel - and we're really excited to be taking the kids away next week," Dallas said.

"We've got a big road trip, some time at Australia Zoo and hopefully some time sitting near the pool - a nice change."

This Friday, the Leukaemia Foundation's Light The Night - where people light lanterns to symbolise strength amid the darkness of blood cancer - marks the end of Blood Cancer Awareness Month.

Looking back at her experience this year, Clare has two messages.

"My main message - especially for people like me, is that mums are always putting ourselves last - so if something doesn't feel right go and get it checked out," she said.

"And also please donate blood if you can. Even now each time I have chemo, I have to have a couple of units of blood transfused as well as platelets, and without that I'd be very sick back in ICU, or worse I'd be dead."

She also encouraged people to look into donating bone marrow - she has been matched with donors from overseas for her own prospective transplant - and said the process was easier than most people thought.

"My mum and my sisters have been going and donating blood, because they understand I feel so indebted to the resources I've had applied to save my life so they've been going on my behalf," she said.

"You just don't know whose life you're going to save by donating, or going on the bone marrow registry."

She is tremendously grateful for the support of her friends and family, and the treatment she received in Wollongong Hospital.

"It's impossible not to be grateful. For life, and that I still get to be a mum, for now, and that I am supported and loved by so many people," she said.

"The staff at Wollongong are amazing.

"I've been in hospital essentially for nine months, and they've become very dear important people to me. Each time I'm in there it's for so long, and everyone from the cleaners to the kitchen ladies - they are rays of sunshine. It makes a tough time a lot easier to deal with."

"I've still got a bit to go, but I've got a fighting chance now, which is amazing. Dallas says at least we have a plan B if we have to have the transplant, and back in January we didn't even have a plan A."

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