Stacey Jaundrell couldn't believe it when she heard her friend Charlotte Dawson was dead.
Just weeks before the Queensland mother of five was considering giving up on life but TV personality Dawson - who is being farewelled in a private memorial service in Matakana today - talked her around.
"Every time I felt like giving up she'd say, 'No, you've got five kids'," Jaundrell told the Herald on Sunday.
Last year during the caesarean birth of her fifth child, doctors discovered the 31-year-old had psuedomyxoma peritonei, a rare cancer. Jaundrell urgently needed an operation at Sydney's St George's Hospital. Without it she could have died. But when budget issues forced the surgeon behind the life-saving operation to reduce his hours, Jaundrell's hopes of survival faded.