Gut cancer is the most common type of cancer in New Zealand, with 15 Kiwis diagnosed with it every day.
Of the seven different types of gut cancers, pancreatic is among the deadliest.
This month is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month, and one terminal patient defying the odds is doing all she can to raise funds and awareness.
Based on the statistics, cancer patient Nyree Smith should be dead.
But she is full of life, love and laughter holding forth at a fund-raising luncheon that she organised.
"I do have a death sentence, I know that, but I'm not going to wallow in self-pity and waste my time. I want to enjoy my life," Smith said.
She has stage four pancreatic cancer and it's terminal.
The average survival rate after being diagnosed, for most patients, is between four and nine months.
Smith has had it for more than six years, and every day she is defying the odds.
"That's the thing with pancreatic cancer, when it does start to move, it will move fast and I understand that. There will come a time when I can't take any more chemotherapy and when that happens it will also move really fast," she said.
"It might be one year, two years, maybe 10 - I'll make the most of it."
Newshub first met her a year ago, when we joined her for a cancer scan.
She was poked, prodded, injected and inspected, to see if the cancer had grown or spread. Incredibly, it hadn't.
But this year "they have grown a little, but it hasn't spread outside of the lungs yet," Smith said.
She has already undergone countless surgeries and rounds of chemotherapy.
The hospital is a second home to her, and the medical staff are like family.
In between those visits, Smith is raising funds and awareness for the cancer that will ultimately her life.
This time last year she organised the first Pan Can gala, now it's this fundraising lunch.
Already, Smith has helped raise more than $200,000.
That's helped fund a much-needed awareness campaign and a pancreatic cyst study - investigating a new treatment.
"It makes a huge difference," Gut Cancer Foundation's Liam Willis said.
"The study that we are funding is actually a study looking at preventing pancreatic cancer cysts turning into pancreatic cancer in high-risk patients," Willis said. "The money raised could be saving lives in New Zealand."
"My legacy, if I can save a life, really that's where it started," Smith said. "There are so few of us that survive long enough to fight for us. If I can make an improvement, make people aware, get people to ask questions, I've achieved something."
The generosity of Kiwis backing her cause has been overwhelming.
"Thank you, just thank you," she said while tearing up.
When asked what her message was to cancer she said: "Go away, you have come up against it."
