Seven years ago, Michelle Stephenson was diagnosed with breast cancer.
It was a worrying time, but after a minor operation, she received the all-clear.
Then, about a year ago — just six months after marrying husband Roy — she fell and broke her hip.
“I was literally having an X-ray, and they were telling me I’d broken my hip and that the cancer was back,” the 50-year-old mum-of-three says.
“It was all through my body and lungs, and it was all over my legs. I’ve had three operations in the last year. I’ve got two great big rods in my legs now because I had tumours eating away at the bone, and they worried my legs would snap. I’ve also had chemotherapy and radiotherapy.”
Michelle pauses.
“Yeah, I’ve had quite a hit this year. It’s been pretty rotten.”
The Disney movie that sparked Michelle’s redwood dream
The cancer is stage four. Michelle knows it’s terminal, though she doesn’t know how long she has left. That’s a question she can’t face asking.
“I haven’t been told, ‘You’ve got two years, or four years.’ I’m hoping I never hear those words.”
Instead, she remains optimistic, even hopeful. After all, no one truly knows what’s around the corner.
To that end, Michelle has not stopped making plans, and there’s one specific date in the calendar she’s got her eye on.
Next November, Michelle and about 20 family and friends will fly to California to see the state’s famous redwood trees.
Reaching heights of up to 100 metres — the equivalent of a 30-storey building — the stately redwoods have been on Michelle’s bucket list ever since she was a child and watched a Disney film called The Gnome-Mobile.
The 1967 movie, starring the children who played Jane and Michael in Mary Poppins, sees the kids encounter a group of 1,000-year-old gnomes in California’s Redwood National Park.
There was something about the gnomes that struck a deep chord with the young Michelle.
“I watched it all the time,” she says. “I wanted to be in those woods with the gnomes. It’s strange, isn’t it? But I’ve always wanted to go and see the redwoods because of that film.”
The story behind her scented pine cones
To help fund the trip, Michelle has tapped into another episode from her past.
Originally from Nottingham, Michelle moved to the north-east 25 years ago, living in Rosehearty, Fraserburgh, and now Stuartfield.
She once worked for north-east retailer Donald’s in Fraserburgh, where she came up with the idea of selling spiced pine cones soaked in various fragrances for Christmas.
The pine cones proved a huge hit, and two years ago Michelle brought them back due to popular demand.
“Everybody was asking for them all the time,” she says.
Following her diagnosis, it was Roy who suggested selling the pine cones to help fund the California trip.
Donald’s agreed, and although Michelle no longer works for the company, she’s set up shop in the Donald’s-owned Homestyle shops in Fraserburgh and Peterhead as well as in GPH Home & Garden in Ellon.
The pine cones are collected during walks Michelle takes along the old Formartine and Buchan Railway line. After gathering them, she steeps the cones — sometimes for weeks — in one of three fragrances: traditional cinnamon, mandarin, or Scots pine, selling them for £10 a bag.
“If I could sell a tonne of them, I’ll get to California next year,” laughs Michelle, whose family have also set up a GoFundMe page for her.
Meeting Roy: ‘What fool let you get away?’
If you’d told Michelle 18 months ago that she’d be selling pine cones to fund a bucket-list trip to the US, she wouldn’t have believed it.
Back then, she’d just married Roy and, as she approached 50, was looking to the future.
Michelle has three children from her first marriage: a son in the army, a daughter who teaches in Aberdeen, and a younger son.
Roy, meanwhile, she met on an online dating app.
“I was just about to deactivate my account because I’d had enough of all the men who shouldn’t have been on there,” she recalls with a big laugh. “Then he popped up and left me a message that said, ‘What fool let you get away?’”
They were together for five and a half years before eventually tying the knot.
Michelle looks to the future
Roy will join Michelle on the California trip. She says her family and friends have been amazing, supporting her as she continues her gruelling chemotherapy and radiotherapy treatment.
Meanwhile, because the cancer has spread to her bones, Michelle now has pins in her legs to prevent them from breaking again.
“I only just started walking properly again in the last four weeks,” she says. “I’ve still got my crutches, but I’m able to walk unaided now, so I’m a lot better.”
Her focus now is on next year’s trip, and she’s confident the majesty of the redwoods will live up to her childhood dreams.
“They’ve built roads through them and everything,” she says in amazement. “They’re that big.”
And when she returns to the north-east — will there be mixed emotions about ticking off a bucket-list wish?
“I can always plan something else,” Michelle says matter-of-factly. “I mean, I want to go off and see the northern lights, for one.”
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