“And the heartbreaking thing for me was having to lay your soul out for everybody to see how hard it is to have that diagnosis and to know that your time is short.”

And then nothing happened. The health select committee turned down a petition seeking a review of Pharmac.

“It was gut-wrenching to have to go through that process and then to feel like it was for nothing. I felt very hurt and disappointed and disconnected from my country.”

When there came the announcement Ibrance would be funded, there was joy - and a bitter taste. Two years of pushing back and then suddenly, “it was good to go”.

Among those who campaigned with her were those who had since died. Others had left New Zealand for countries where through dual-citizenship they could access drugs New Zealand would not buy.

“I used to reflect on 'what does two years mean to me?' It’s seeing my son become a teenager, it’s seeing my daughter graduate, it might be mokopuna, grandchildren, arriving … birthdays or these special milestones that you take for granted in your life.”

Life has gone on. Initially, every milestone was celebrated as if it might be the last. “It's really hard to live in a heightened state like that.

“So we make those moments really count. It's taking those moments along on the journey, not trying to keep kind of operating at this level of, ‘what if I died tomorrow’.”

The day she was diagnosed, they collected all the children and told them what was happening. And those conversations continue, so they know “I'm a very sick person”.

“I might not look like that but I've got cancer in my body and it's ravaging it and spreading all the time.”

When Ibrance was funded, Mulholland thought that was it with campaigning. “Malcolm said to me: 'We leave no one behind'.” So they fought on, helping run advocacy group Patient Voice Aotearoa.

This year’s election might be Mulholland’s last chance to vote. She will be studying policy on Pharmac and ways New Zealanders can access the most modern of medicines.

Mulholland doesn’t know how much time she has left. “I would like to say a long time but it is so hard to know. It is so hard to know.

“We were charging along fine. We both had good jobs. We were participating in our community. We've been board of trustees members. We've been sports coaches, the whole nine yards.

“The carpet was pulled out in 2018 about how we live our life. I often reflect on that now and think, ‘am I living my best life?’.

“Statistically, I shouldn't be here. That's a real hard-out thing. It's confronting to think I actually should be dead.”

This is where Paula Marshall lived, where husband Rob Kirkwood, 49, and their children - Archie, 8, Daisy, 10, and Milly, 12 - still live.

On July 10 last year, Marshall died at age 49 with bowel cancer. It arrived as an unwelcome guest in October 2018 although wasn’t immediately diagnosed.

The cancer that killed Marshall announced itself with stomach pain. While they wondered what she might have eaten, the thing inside her grew and spread and brought pain enough that one evening she said: “This pain is not going away, I’m worried I’ve got bowel cancer.”

Hours waiting at the emergency department saw a diagnosis of constipation. Marshall went back four times looking for answers and each time she was sent away with different answers - anxiety, diarrhea, irritable stomach ulcer.

“Naively, we put up with it for a period of time. And then she was in a lot of pain so we went back again. I was pretty angry - I said ‘we’re not leaving here until we have a CT scan’. ”

Ninety minutes after the scan, Marshall was in surgery. It was six hours waiting before the surgeon emerged and told Kirkwood: “You’re in for a very long year.” They didn’t even get that long.

“If you catch it early the recovery rate is quite high. But the key is to catch it early. In this case, it was stage four. And the oncologist referred to palliative care, not curative care. And so once we heard those words, we thought, ‘hang on a minute - we're only going one way’.”

Medical insurance and family money offered some treatment pathways not available under the public system. Marshall would shift between the treatment available to all New Zealanders and those available to a fortunate few.

Kirkwood clearly recognises the privilege in this and it doesn’t sit well. He sees GiveALittle campaigns - people searching for money to prolong life, to create a greater chance of survival, to buy access to treatments that the public system will not offer.

“It's just unequal. It's unfair. It just shouldn't be the case. You shouldn't have to have private medical insurance. You shouldn't have to have life insurance - or enormous savings, or mortgage your house - to pay for cancer drugs.”

How life changes. How your entwined future disappears. How your plans together become plans alone.

“You just shut down those long-distance thoughts or plans that we might've had. You start doing things now and you start saying, ‘let's go - let's take the kids back to the South Island, let's get that camper van, let's hold this big party, let's not put anything off’.”

They talked about what happens after Marshall dies. “How am I going to manage with work and land and the house and children? What’s that going to look like? Not how am I going to manage physically but how am I going to manage emotionally? I'm going to be a solo dad. I don't know how to do that.”

They talked to the children about it, but carefully and incrementally. “We could say that mum's going to die, but in actual fact we're all going to die - she's just going to die earlier than the rest of us. It could be three months, six months, two years. We don't know.”

In late June, Marshall was preparing to turn 49 and so a big birthday party was planned. “We knew she wouldn't be here for her 50th.” Then, in 18 days, she was dead.”

As the end approached, Marshall reached for God, continuing a journey towards Catholicism that had started before the cancer was discovered. Six days before she died, she was baptised. Marshall’s decline was marked from that point.

“I guess sometimes you believe that the end’s not going to come. You think maybe it'll be okay and then you start realising that that's actually not going to be okay. She will die.”

One night, close to the end, Kirkwood was lying next to Marshall in bed, and she said: “I think it's time for me to go.” “Just do what you think is right,” he told her. And she fell asleep.

When birdsong sounded the next morning, July 10, Marshall sat up: “I’m still alive. I think I’ll have a cup of tea.” And she talked about the flower pots that need replanting, and saw visitors during the day, spent time with her sisters.

Late afternoon, there was a change. Inside an hour, family and friends had gathered at the house. There were about 30 people who loved Marshall gathered at her bedside. “We just started talking about some of the stories and memories. And then she just … last breath, with everyone.

“Is there anything that we would have done differently? I guess, yeah, there probably is. We could have probably got a colonoscopy 10 years ago and had one every three years or five years. That would have been the difference.”

“That's one of the bugbears of mine and Paula's case - it was completely preventable and treatable.”

Kirkwood ticks through the countries that offer colonoscopies at 35, 40, 45. We don’t do that in New Zealand. Free screening starts later in life, and it’s hit-and-miss, depending on the district health board area.

Like the Mulhollands, when Kirkwood last cast a vote, cancer had yet to enter their life.

This time, the health system is exactly where his eye will be when it comes to the ballot box.

“The health system has been underfunded for such a long, long time. I know it’s an enormous job. We should never ever be in a position like this. We should be leading the world around this stuff.”

A year has passed. Marshall is everywhere in the family home. There’s a family portrait taken around the time of the diagnosis. She looks vibrant, well, and the family beams and smiles at the camera. Eight months later she was gone.

“She showed me what good parenting looks like. And she showed me what being a good human looks like. So I have taken her example and I've tried to be a great father.”