"I've always thought positive," she said.

"[That belief] just comes from within me, and seeing all the support around me.

"My family, my parents have been amazing."

Ashleigh is also letting nothing impede her mission to raise $15,000 for Cancer Council NSW, via the Kiama Relay for Life.

Ashleigh, 19, is currently undergoing an exhausting schedule of chemotherapy as she fights Metastatic Ewing Sarcoma for the third time, a form of bone cancer occurring most frequently in young people.

Two-and-a half years ago, Ashleigh was a typical Year 12 student at Kiama High School, focused on her upcoming HSC, when she started to feel pain in her pelvis.

A cancer diagnosis soon followed.

While her friends finished the year in the classroom, Ashleigh's life was resigned to a hospital bed as she began treatment for the tumours which eventually invaded every vertebra in her spine.

However, Ashleigh took part in last year's Kiama Relay for Life as a survivor, believing she had beaten the disease.

The cancer then returned last September, cutting short a planned European holiday.

"It definitely feels like a while ago," she said of last year's Relay.

"I thought I'd finished treatment forever and it wasn't going to come back.

"My spirit hasn't changed at all though - I'm still positive."

Ashleigh has had many rounds of chemotherapy, 55 doses of radiation, a hemipelvectomy operation to remove her pelvis to radiate it and a stem cell transplant.

She is on a new chemotherapy trial, which has just become available due to research made possible by fund-raising.

Since being on the trial, scans have shown the disease in her body is reducing.

She urged the community to get behind this year's Relay, taking place on May 3-4.

"My friends and family have been fantastic and I have had so many people that wanted to help that we had to register two Team Ash teams for the Relay," Ashleigh said.

■To register, phone 4223 0200 or visit the www.relayforlife.org.au website.