'I can't imagine living life any other way': Cancer survivor Chloe Osborn's stirring conviction

If not for a diagnosis she describes as "frightening", Chloe Osborn would have been darting around with a football at her feet as she entered her teenage years, chasing her Matildas dream. Or playing until dusk with her puppy. Or seeing her friends at school each day.

Instead, she spent 18 months bed-ridden at The Children's Hospital at Westmead, battling the hideous effects of an aggressive form of bone cancer called Ewing sarcoma.

"Not everyone did make it out of hospital, but I was one of the lucky ones that did," Osborn tells Wide World of Sports.

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Nine years on, at the age of 21, the furthest the Paralympic swimmer can walk is a single step.

At the Paris La Defense Arena this year, where the young athlete from Sydney's Hills District won a medal on her Paralympic debut, she rolled to and from the blocks in her wheelchair.

She did so beaming with her precious smile. To her friends and family, who are repeatedly blown away by her positivity in the face of significant adversity, that was a given.

Osborn celebrated eight years of being free of cancer on Saturday.

At the NSW Champions of Sport Ceremony on Monday, she will be in the running to win Young Athlete of the Year with a Disability.

Choking back tears of pride, the young swimmer's mum ponders the path her daughter has taken since she was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma in January 2016, aged 12.

"Looking at how far she's come from being a fit, healthy 12-year-old, to someone who's having chemo and battling cancer, and getting back to where she is now, it's incredible," Kerilyn Osborn tells Wide World of Sports.

Chloe remembers the outset of her cancer battle as a "very scary" and "horrible" time for both herself and her family.

"It started out with not knowing at all what was going to happen, and getting the news that it was cancer was pretty frightening for a 12-year-old," Chloe recalls.

"Losing my hair was the first step of it. It was before any of the nausea and fatigue came in. Losing my hair ... was what made it very real and frightening, but once I started to feel the sickness and nausea the whole lost hair thing stopped being a worry.

"It was then about not wanting to feel so terrible all the time.

"But the losing of the hair was when I realised, 'Oh, shit, this is actually real, I actually have cancer'."

Chloe had a sizeable chunk of vertebrae removed, then the tumour once the surgeon could reach it, in one critical spinal operation.

But a vicious decline was only getting started.

Within two years, as a result of chemotherapy and radiation, and the crucial but highly invasive surgery that preceded the treatment, she suffered so much nerve damage that she went from walking with a limp to barely being able to walk at all.

She did no schooling across years seven and eight and was home-schooled in years nine and 10.

"It was really exhausting. I was sick constantly, weak and couldn't get out of bed most days. I spent pretty much 18 months in bed not being able to move very much," she recalls.

"I did get out as much as I could, but it was exhausting, it was draining and I was constantly not feeling well. It was a pretty tough time."

Chloe has always been a picture of positivity.

"At the time I tried to stay as positive as possible. I knew if I kept smiling and kept pushing through I was going to be fine, and I had that mentality through the whole thing," she says.

"I never let the thoughts of the worst that could happen pop into my head, I stayed thinking about what was the best that could happen, and the positive thoughts are what got me through it, I think."

She only began swimming for rehabilitation.

The thought that she's now a Paralympic medallist, having won silver as a member of Australia's 4x100m freestyle (34 points) relay team in Paris, blows her mind.

She also competed in the 100m freestyle S7, 400m freestyle S7 and 4x50m freestyle (20 points) relay in Paris.

Nowadays, on top of having to get around in a wheelchair, she struggles with osteoporosis, particularly throughout her spine, and nerve pain.

"I'm lucky when I get a good night's sleep," she admits.

In Chloe's mind, being positive is the only option.

"I don't see any other choice. What's the other choice? To have a negative attitude? Who wants to live their life like that? Why would you want to walk around having such a negative attitude on life?"

Her mum is in awe.

"No obstacle can stop her. She never says, 'Why me?'; she just gets up and does it," Kerilyn says.

"I would rather speak positive and see the good out of everything," Chloe says, "and I can't imagine living life any other way."