The third-generation Canberra public servant and stage four cancer patient has made time to witness senators debate proposed laws to restore territory rights.

A spectator in a scarf, the 47-year-old felt an affinity for Liberal senator Jane Hume as she tearfully recounted her dear father's final struggles and the "beautiful way" he chose to die. Senator Hume changed her mind and her vote in favour of voluntary assisted dying, but largely the argument has been over the democratic rights of the ACT and the Northern Territory as they are the subject of a 25-year-old ban on making their own laws.

Like many outside Federal Parliament, Ms Fisher is unsure where this is all heading, but she wants to know and she wants those deciding the bill's fate to be informed.

"I'm relatively healthy at the moment. I had a rough year, so I had a little spot of brain surgery [at the] beginning of May. And then I had chemo for around 18 weeks. But now I'm good .. I'm lucky that my doctors still have treatments that they can try for me, but these are not curative. They're life-prolonging," Ms Fisher told The Canberra Times.

"I have the luxury of a little bit of time but at the same time, I'd need to go, 'Well, if it's not going to be a possibility in the ACT, I need to have an idea of that'. So I can go, 'Well, this is the time I have to start looking at do I want to move'? And I don't want to but, you know, do I need to?

"To me, this is my home. My family has deep roots in the place and it feels very familiar to me. So I don't want to go."

Ms Fisher was first diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer in 2014. After treatment, it went away. But in 2018, the headaches started. It had come back and spread to her brain.

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The treatment in her words, "wasn't the funnest experience", but she welcomes the "excellent" medical care she has received in the ACT and the significant periods where the cancer has been pushed back.

"I'm very lucky. My doctors haven't washed their hands of me. They've not given up," she said.

"All my doctors and nurses have been great. But, it will come to a time when there's not a lot more they can do."

Ms Fisher is factoring a lot more than herself. She lost her beloved son seven years ago and her dog this year. She has a young daughter, a wider family and network. She loves Canberra, does not want to move and does not feel she should.

She cites territory rights as the issue which swayed her vote at the May 21 election.

"It's home and I like it and I still have a lot of friends and family here. So I don't want to go," she said.

"I have a daughter. She's 17. And it's a crucial time in her life and I don't want to take her away from her friends or supports, either. And I don't have the financial capability to have two households. It's just not an option."

She wants senators deliberating on territory rights to know some very invested people are running out of time.

"It's a little bit of a race in a way that I'm monitoring and I hope that the territory rights passes and the ACT passes some legislation before I get to the stage where I need to make those kinds of decisions," Ms Fisher said.

"Please, let's do this before the end of this year. So in the next eight days [of Parliament], please.

"It is, for some people, a very time critical thing and they might think that stopping now and over the Christmas break isn't a big deal. But really that adds another two to three months on top of a process. People are running out of time."

As for her, it is a matter of wait and see.

"I am in absolutely no rush to go. If the legislation for voluntary assisted dying was passed in Canberra, I can't even tell you that I would definitely use it," she revealed.

"I may very well not, because at the moment life is still good and I'm happy to be here. And the idea of voluntary assisted dying doesn't scare me.

"I also know that there comes a time when, you know, life might not be so good. So before I had surgery earlier this year, I had headaches that were debilitating and I wasn't coping with them at all. And I thought, 'Oh, if this is what the end is going to be like I'm not, I'm not prepared for that'.

"But as I said at the moment, we've had a lot of rain, but today the sun's shining and everything's green and lovely and fresh and it's a good place to be."

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