"I was going to be a survivor there was no doubt about that, that was what I was going to be and I am lucky I was."
But Brough's chronic pain, fatigue, repeated doses of shingles and short-term memory loss only got worse and she reluctantly had to stop teaching.
"I tried really hard to stay and I adapted my work, worked more from home and that sort of thing, but I just kept getting fatigue and repeated doses of shingles," Brough said.
She did not want to leave, but "I had no choice".
Despite this, Brough doesn't let her battles with health define her.
"I don't see them as negatives in my life, I see them as my journey."
Brough hopes to reinvent herself and her career one day but has to prioritise her health.
"I will do something at some stage but I just need to get myself some time at the moment," Brough said. "I'll find something that reaches kids still, somehow."
The severe short-term memory loss meant Brough has had to play a lot of "mental gymnastics". She had entertained the idea of creating a resource to help others in a similar situation.
"A lot of the strategies I am learning now might be useful for someone else so I am thinking maybe creating a resource for people who have lost their memory."
Education is "everything" to Brough, but that wasn't always the case.
Brough hated school, yet she became a teacher. She hated maths but became a Ministry of Education mathematics consultant. She seldom read books but became an author and a lecturer in literacy.
She discovered a love for books while on a camping trip with her best friend. The wet weather left the girls "bored silly", so Brough memorised an entire Dr Seuss book.
Dr Seuss has since become a fascination of hers and a common feature in her classrooms and lectures. She often wore a Dr Seuss T-shirt to lectures.
Brough's master's thesis encapsulated her teaching vision and she was later awarded the Rae Munro New Zealand Association for Research in Education Best Masters Thesis of the Year in 2011.
The thesis explored student-centred curriculum integration that placed children at the centre of their learning, with the teacher involving them in classroom decisions and curriculum planning.
"I wanted to be a teacher that inspired kids, and I thought you inspired kids by having a hands-on learning approach," Brough said.
She also received the student-nominated Aotearoa Sustained Teaching Excellence Award in 2012.
Kathleen Kilgour Centre radiation oncologist Dr Leanne Tyrie said the dose of radiotherapy Brough received 19 years ago was appropriate for the extent of her mediastinal Hodgkin's disease and was based on the medical evidence available at the time.
Modern treatment would involve smaller doses of radiotherapy and chemotherapy, even when they present with bulky chest disease, Tyrie said.
She said it was important that patients who received radiotherapy to the central chest area were given survivorship plans to help GPs know what rare late effects, such as heart disease, could happen as they age.
Tyrie said the plan could contain recommended screening tests and descriptions of the potential treatment-related symptoms that Brough experienced.