Abby Daniels has spent six years with a rare and aggressive bone cancer. Through surgeries, chemotherapy, a heart attack and a week in a hospice, she has kept dancing, teaching and performing. Now 26, she has one simple wish – to live.
Growing up in Swindon, Abby Daniels’ passion has been dancing and singing – and that has continued despite the last six years of her life being a struggle against a rare sarcoma cancer.
The cancer has returned on numerous occasions, meaning surgeries, ablations, chemotherapy and immunotherapy. But Abby has remained active and in May took part in a concert for Sarcoma UK, which she organised and hosted to celebrate her life.
In July 2020, after just graduating from the University of Chichester with a degree in Musical Theatre, Abby found a lump on her leg. At first, she thought it was a pulled muscle but a doctor referred her for scans. Shockingly, she was diagnosed as having osteosarcoma.
Abby recalls asking medics: ‘Will I be able to dance again?’ She was told ‘no’.
Devastated by this news, she had three months of chemotherapy followed by surgery to remove the tumour in December 2020 that replaced her left knee and femur bone. This was followed by a further six months of chemotherapy and immunotherapy.
Abby was determined to keep dancing, however, and, after each cycle of chemotherapy, videoed herself performing in an effort to get back to full mobility.
In September 2021, Abby was given the all-clear and she moved to Portsmouth to teach dance and musical theatre. She also joined local amateur company Portsmouth Players to continue her love of being on stage.
But, in April 2022, the cancer had returned in her leg and lungs. More surgeries followed, as it did in 2023 when she had another recurrence. Despite this, Abby still managed to pass her driving test at the first attempt.
The cancer returned again in 2024, which meant yet more surgery. But Abby was still performing. ‘Each time I had an operation, I had just done a show.’
She was also still teaching dance to youngsters. At one point, Abby was being treated for sepsis. Unable to be with her students, she got her mother Trish to video her performing the routines in her hospital room to show to them.
Abby had also been working as manager of Stagecoach Portsmouth performing arts, a dance teacher with Funkidz and as a dinner lady. She admits keeping herself busy and focused was a way of dealing with her illness.
Trish said: ‘Throughout it all, Abby found a safe haven in musical theatre and performing. Since she was a child, she has gone to many singing, dancing and acting classes and performed in many different shows.’
Again, the cancer returned last year, which meant more leg surgery. In October 2025, she began palliative chemotherapy. Abby had a heart attack at home in February 2026 which was followed by a week in a hospice.
While in the hospice – in case she was unable to attend or perform in the concert to be held in May to celebrate her life – Abby recorded all her songs as a back-up as she was determined the concert would go ahead with or without her.
Luckily, she was able to perform in and compere the show called Raise The Curtain at Barn Studio Theatre that was attended by friends, family, people from all walks of her life and even some of the medical professionals who had been treating her.
Trish said: ‘There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. It was uplifting, funny, poignant and joyous. Abby introduced each song and explained why it was important to her.’
At the concert, Abby reflected on when surgeons told her she would no longer be able to dance again or ‘could I dance with my hands’. She said: ‘I was devastated at the time and honestly terrified about what was to come but since then I have managed to prove those surgeons wrong by passing my Intermediate and Dance Diploma in Education Tap exams, being part of huge dance numbers in Fame and Legally Blonde, and I have taught dance to over 100 children. This was all among multiple lung and more leg operations. If I could tell myself six years ago everything I’ve achieved, I know she’d be incredibly proud because she felt so lost at the time.’
Abby, now 26, has decided against having more chemotherapy and instead wants to ‘live life for now’ and spend time with her family in Swindon.
She does have plans to release a song she has written called The Puzzle about how the pieces of her own life have been thrown up in the air because of her diagnosis and how she has tried to put them back together again. She hopes to release this to raise even more funds for Sarcoma UK.
Raise The Curtain raised more than £4,000 for Sarcoma UK but a link for donations is still open at https://www.justgiving.com/page/raise-the-curtain?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=CL
Emily Williams, Research Manager at Sarcoma UK, said: ‘Stories like Abby’s drive everything we do. She has faced repeated recurrences of osteosarcoma partly because, like many patients, her cancer found ways to resist chemotherapy. We now know that some osteosarcoma cells can go dormant when chemotherapy is administered, essentially hiding until treatment ends, then returning. Sarcoma UK is funding pioneering research at UCL that is working to crack that resistance by identifying the biological switches that allow cells to go to sleep and testing drugs that could stop them. For young people like Abby, that research cannot come soon enough. This is the science that could possibly change outcomes for the next young person to receive this diagnosis.’
