"I just want to live": Elaine's fight against lung cancer

"I don’t want to die, so how are you going to fix me?”

That was the question 71-year-old Elaine Leggott asked the doctors when they discovered her lung cancer a year ago.

It was found by chance in November 2025, when she rushed to the ED because of a suspected Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) flare-up. She was told she was actually having a heart attack, and what followed was more bad news.

Doctors at the hospital did a CT scan, and it showed she had lung cancer.

They treated her heart, which meant a three-month wait before anything could be done about the cancer.

With her lungs at 20 per cent capacity due to her COPD, surgery and chemotherapy were ruled out. She was eventually told there was nothing more to be done.

“But I told them, I don’t want to die, so how are you going to fix me?

“I didn’t want to just go home, sit there and cry,” she says.

“I'm an ordinary person who loves to laugh and enjoy life, and I do not want to die.”

Eventually, nearly a year on from her diagnosis, she has been able to have five rounds of radiation.

She will not know whether it has worked until 17 November, a year to the day after her heart attack.

As a former smoker, Elaine knows she would have been eligible for lung cancer screening if New Zealand had a programme, and it could have been picked up earlier.

Elaine Leggott just had her 71st birthday. When you ask her how she is now, she replies: "Every day is a good day when you wake up."

In Masterton, Elaine is known as the woman behind the Doing a Good Deed Facebook page, and her work for her community was recently recognised by the Mayor. 

Keeping busy is the best way to take her mind off things, she says.

“I can't just sit down and do nothing.”

She is quick to praise the cancer nurses at Masterton Hospital, who were "amazing" and always at the end of the phone when she was unsure, and the support from her friends and family keeps her going, she says.

Elaine is supporting the Cardiac and Respiratory Foundation’s call to see the Government roll out a national lung cancer screening programme sooner rather than later, she says.

"Why wait four years for the trial to end, when we can already see it is working in other countries?,” she says.

Foundation Chief Executive Ms Letitia Harding says Elaine's experience shows how often lung cancer is found by chance.

"We know the majority of lung cancers are picked up in the ED, often too late for treatment.

"Elaine's story is a powerful reminder that our country needs to do better," she says.

"We know lung cancer screening saves lives, and the pilot rollout is a positive step forward, but we don’t need to wait four years to implement it. We hope the next government commits to the national screening programme, sooner rather than later"

The Foundation is calling for a national lung cancer screening programme to be funded in the 2027 Budget.