I've gone from planning my funeral to the holiday of a lifetime...

Exeter’s Gemma Wensley is planning the holiday of a lifetime - an astonishing trip for a woman who a few years ago was planning her funeral.

The popular city nurse is celebrating surviving six years since her brain tumour terminal diagnosis. Five years of gruelling chemotherapy seems to have worked and Gemma is now well enough and can just about afford the insurance to holiday in Dubai, Australia and New Zealand where she will be visiting friends.

“My brain tumour is still inoperable but I’m still here and I feel confident that I am going to live longer, “said Gemma. “Before I felt I was living on borrowed time. Now I feel so much better and am so excited about my holiday. It feels like a new phase of my life.”

After her diagnosis Gemma regularly visited Hospiscare’s Exeter day hospice where she received physical, physiological and emotional support during her darkest days.

Now Gemma visits the hospice to organise GemFest, Exeter’s very special mini festival, which next year takes place on Sunday March 27 – Easter Sunday.

This will be the fourth GemFest – the event has already raises thousands of pounds for Hospiscare, a local charity helping local people. Half of the proceeds will go to The Brain Tumour Charity, the UK's largest dedicated brain tumour charity.

Gemma, a former pupil at Exeter College, has always been a big live music fan and regularly attended many UK festivals including Glastonbury before she fell ill.

Friends organised a festival in 2012 to celebrate Gemma’s 30th birthday - with a host of live acts and performers at Exeter Phoenix.

To find out more about Gemma see Hospiscare’s press officer Liz Straw’s blog , Gemma – A Woman on a Mission.