When she was diagnosed with an inoperable ovarian tumour two years ago, feisty septuagenarian Dr Jan Hammill was determined to beat the odds and fight back.
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Since then, she has powered her way to health, thanks to the world of powerlifting.
It started as a novel idea suggested by her friend and training partner, Dr Paul White, to improve her mobility and quality of life.
But since then, Dr Hammill has gone from someone who could hardly lift a broom or bend her knees, to taking out the world record for a single-lift dead lift (72.5 kilograms) for a woman in her weight and age category.
As one of three self-styled Indigenous “Iron Aunties”, the retired nurse turned academic trains twice a week at the Fortitude Barbell powerlifting gym in the Valley, under the watchful gaze of coach Jonny B Bad, and follows a strict diet.
“I’m on a ketone diet and drink four bottles of water a day,” Dr Hammill said.
“I’ve cut out all sugars and eat very little bread, except on the day I do lifts because that’s when you need a carbo load.
“I mostly eat vegetarian-type proteins, and while I do have bacon and eggs, I have so much I tend to get quite sick of it,” she mused.
A typical work-out sees Dr Hammill do 20 ‘pull-downs’ with 30-kilogram weights attached, followed by 10 push-ups and then some bench presses.
She was never a gym junkie and took little interest in hardcore diets before her diagnosis.
“I had a really large, slow-growing ovarian cancer that had taken over most of my lower abdomen,” Dr Hammill said.
“While I had an operation to remove most of it, some of it is still there in the blood vessels but they couldn’t do anything about that.
“It’s responding to Tamoxifen, the breast cancer drug, and while the biomarker, CA125, remains under 30 I’m fine; we know it’s not active.”
Training partner Paul White said there was an abundance of research showing exercise was one of the keys to helping people survive cancer.
“Resistance training [lifting weights] seems to be coming through as the best of the exercises,” Dr White said.
“It’s easy to do with older, vulnerable folk. Getting them to pick something heavy up is something they’re all pretty used to.
“We started off training Jan and a couple of older Indigenous ladies twice a week and gradually increasing their mobility and getting them moving.
Mr White said his training partner was "irrepressible", even sneaking in to train on her own.
“Jan trains until we throw her out,” he quipped.
“One of the biggest issues we have is stopping her from lifting things that she shouldn’t.
“She sneaks on extra kilos on the bar and thinks nobody’s noticed and then picks it up.
“She’s just going to keep on lifting heavier and heavier weights - I don’t know where she will stop.”
Gym owner Jonny Nelson said his training goals for Jan were very simple.
“I wanted her to be able to move better,” Mr Nelson said.
“At first, it was just about just getting her mobile, teaching some functional movements to improve her day-to-day lifestyle.”
When she first came in, the owner said, his newest recruit struggled to squat to a bench and was quite weak.
“First goals are simple: we teach you how to squat, teach you how to move in the gym and use your own body weight, and how to use some of the dumb-bells and some of the light machines. Jan is pretty stubborn and wants to get good at things,” he chuckled.
“Over time, we introduced powerlifting movements. At the end of her first year of training, there was a dead lift competition.
“I was quite happy with her progress and training and knew it would be quite safe for her to dead lift.
“We taught her to dead lift, and took it nice and light and conservative - and she dead lifted about 70 kilograms setting an Australian record (for) her age and weight category.
“She’s come a long way."
