Twenty-five years ago, she was the opposite, after being diagnosed with terminal breast cancer.
It was only by accident that she discovered she even had it.
"I was always healthy, never sick or anything like that, and I’d always worked.
"I was visiting family in Wellington. My wee niece sat on my knee and I went ‘ouch’!"
When Mrs Mitchell went to see about the pain, her doctor told her she had breast cancer, it was spreading and it was terminal.
They were dark and terrifying times, but paradoxically, the 72-year-old seemed to be the only one keeping her head on straight while everyone around her was falling apart, she said.
Amazingly, after having a full mastectomy, six lots of chemotherapy and six weeks of radiation therapy over a nine-month period, Mrs Mitchell is fit as a fiddle again.
"It should have killed me.
"Once I started the chemo, I got really sick and I ended up in hospital for a couple of weeks.
"I had nothing to lose."
During her battle, she learnt a lot about how to support someone in her position, she said.
"Even though you’re sick, you’re in control somewhat.
"As a support person, you want to be there, but you don’t know what to do because the person who’s got cancer doesn’t know what they want either.
"So it doesn’t matter what you do, you’ll do the wrong thing.
"I’ve always said, ‘being the support person is the hardest job’."
She was so grateful for the care and support she received from the Cancer Society, she started volunteering at the Dunedin facility, using her experiences to help support others on similar journeys, Mrs Mitchell said.
Yesterday, she was part of a large group of volunteers who were bunching daffodils for the society’s annual Daffodil Day fundraiser tomorrow.
About 185,680 daffodils have been bunched, and about 1500 Otago and Southland volunteers will be out in the streets selling them in a bid to raise $500,000 to support cancer patients.
