Swimmer reflects on shock discovery before major event
The champion Masters swimmer, then 47, never imagined she'd be also be diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer in the weeks before she hit the water.
"It was the most surreal feeling, just to be feeling so strong and so healthy and wanting to get involved in this fundraiser for other people that I cared about and then finding myself in that exact spot," Ms Wellington told AAP.
"It just kind of highlights that cancer does not discriminate."
Still reeling from her own health shock, she and about 100 others relished the chance to take a dip in the freezing cold water off Adelaide's Henley Beach.
They raised almost $7000.
"In that water was just pure joy, everyone put aside their grief, fear and everything else and just had fun with it," she said.
This year, she's organised two swims to raise money for Daffodil Day on August 21 with participants urged to don bright yellow - the colour of hope - and lean into their inner silliness.
"It's easy to brush off, there's such a need for money for everything and I think people do get a little bit compassion fatigued," she said.
"But you're talking about cancer in particular, affecting one in two people in their lifetime."
About 8000 people have signed up for Daffodil Day Dips around the nation this year, a quirky fundraiser on top of daffodil stalls and thousands of workplace fundraisers aiming to raise $4 million nationally.
The money raised through the Cancer Council will mainly go towards research.
That includes work to understand risk factors, improve diagnosis, public health prevention and clinical trials of new drugs, including medicines with fewer side effects.
Peter Diamond is general manager of support and research at the Cancer Council.
He said while almost 170,000 Australians were diagnosed with cancer in the last year and almost 53,000 patients died, the world was "absolutely" getting closer to cures for certain forms.
The overall survival rate within five year of a diagnosis has drastically improved, going from 52 per cent in 1989/93 up to 70 per cent in 2014/18.
Dr Diamond said knowledge, treatments and research were rapidly improving but more work was needed to be done - and funded.
"I do think that we're always on the precipice of something new and exciting," he said.
"We're now implementing all these new technologies which many years ago were considered complete science fiction.
"As we get a better understanding and as technology improves, the things that used to take us really long time to do now don't take us long."
Ms Wellington knows times are tough for many Australians but wants people to know it's still valuable to donate just a few extra dollars to help improve outcomes for patients.
"They're making such amazing advances in research for cancer, but it needs to keep going and the only way to get that is to keep holding these kinds of events," she said.
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