Award-winning journalist Jill Singer has been told she has only six to 12 months to live after being diagnosed with a rare blood disorder.
Singer, 60, says she was "two weeks from dead" when she was finally told six weeks ago that she had AL amyloidosis, a disease where amyloid-form proteins in the blood are attacking her heart and peripheral nerves.
It followed a year of medical misdiagnosis where the journalism veteran endured four rounds of electroconvulsive treatment after specialists wrongly linked her physical symptoms with depression.
Her grim diagnosis came just weeks before Singer on Saturday married her "true and steadfast love", lawyer Anthony Brand.
In a Facebook post on Saturday, first published as an article for News Corp, the Walkley Award-winner recalled how at first her feet began to "go numb" before she was overcome by nausea, vomiting, agonising joint pain, extreme fatigue and the inability to walk unassisted.
Her weight plummeted from 60 kilograms to 42 kilograms in a matter of months.
Last November paramedics administered a drug to stop and re-start her heart before she underwent "surgery to re-circuit my heart".
"I was then delivered back to the 'care' of the psychiatric profession," she posted.
"It was like being trapped in a never-ending Fellini film that could only have one possible end. By the time I found my way to the wonderful staff at St Vincent's hospital I had barely two weeks' life left within me."
Singer said she was told the average life expectancy for someone with stage 3 AL amyloidosis such as hers, was 6-12 months from diagnosis.
"I am determined not to be average though, to make the most of every moment I have left and to will myself, somehow, to outlive the most pessimistic of pundits," she posted.
Even in the midst of her personal fight, she posted of the unfairness of a health system which disadvantaged those who could not afford private health cover.
"One of the 'gold standard' diagnostic imaging tests I was privileged to have was a cardiac MRI," she wrote. "It cost $500 and was totally non-rebatable by Medicare."
In 1996, the former Today Tonight host famously collapsed on air from stress while explaining why a story on the Kennett family's share dealings was pulled by Channel 7.
In her post on Saturday, Singer criticised the negative response from some quarters, including the ABC and the Australian Financial Review, to Julia Gillard's replacement of Jeff Kennett as chair of Beyond Blue.