Chapel-en-le-Frith woman living with Stage 4 cancer opens shop

On Saturday Gemma Ellis will be welcoming her first customers to her new shop on the Market Place on Chapel.

It is months of hard work coming together that she has done while receiving cancer treatment.

She said: “I'm mostly looking forward to cutting that ribbon with my girls. We couldn't get Westlife – believe me I tried!”

Gemma was diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer in 2017 and then Stage 4 Breast Cancer in 2018 where the disease had spread to her bones and was treatable but no longer curable.

After being stable for a few years which she says was not expected things unfortunately took a change for the worse and she was diagnosed with two Secondary breast cancer lesions to her brain that needed targeted radiotherapy.

She said: “ I'm so proud of gaining charity status and especially having this shop to focus on.

"I just hope I haven't left it to late to enjoy and really get my teeth into as my health unfortunately continues to slowly deteriorate.

“I hope this shop will give me that motivation to carry on ‘living with’ Secondary Breast Cancer and supports others in my situation and those who will unfortunately walk my path in the future.”

Once the shop is up and running and all in place Gemma says shes fully intends on putting her all into The GEM Foundation to fund vital research into Secondary Breast Cancer.

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The 39-year-old-said: “I have visited the professor at The Christie research centre who works with the University of Manchester and has a interesting study starting to try and find out how and why certain types of breast cancer spread to the brain and if there are any treatments that could prevent this before it happens.”

Gemma has been helping others while receiving treatment herself but her kind work has not gone unnoticed and has now made it to the finals in the category of 'Boss Lady' for the North West Cancer Awards.

"Obviously this is another exciting time ahead, its all happening at once!! There is a lot of very well known and brilliant people in the North West who will be on that awards list.

"I'm pretty sure I will know most of them. So I don't hold out a lot of hope for winning the award but its a honour to be nominated and shortlisted.”

Speaking about the opening of the shop Gemma said: “I have to thank so many people for getting to where I am now, I’m not going to personally name names in fear of missing anyone out but they know who they are.”The new shop on Eccles Road, in Chapel and will be selling charity merchandise, handmade products and second hand products such as clothes, toys and books.

On Saturday October, 1 the doors will open for the first time at 12pm and shoppers will be treated to Prosecco and cupcakes while they browse and able to take part in a guess the dog and raffle.

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