Her two younger sons - Hamish and Matthew - waited outside her GP's office, while her eldest daughters - Lily and Meg - were out helping with the annual Monster Garage Sale.

"The doctor called me and Vincent [my husband] in and I knew it wasn't good," Mrs Graham said.

"The boys knew it wasn't good."

The memory of that day in February 2019 still brings forth emotion. At the time, her youngest Matthew was only eight years old, while eldest Lily was just 18.

"There were a lot of tears, a lot of prayers and a lot of hugging," she said.

"The toughest thing was telling my kids. None of us knew what to expect, no-one knew what was ahead."

The diagnosis came as a shock to the family. Second daughter Meg recalls she was "devastated".

"It took me a while to come to terms with it. It was maybe four or five months before I got my head around it," Meg said.

Although she was given the cancer diagnosis, it was not until months later that Mrs Graham learnt the name of her cancer.

A specialist at Sydney's St Vincent Hospital told her she had multiple myeloma, or 'Kahler's disease', a cancer that attacks the plasma of bone marrow.

"For a long time, I couldn't use the word 'cancer'. I didn't want to say the word," Mrs Graham said.

"When I was diagnosed, the specialist said there were a lot 'living with it', that's the lingo they use, 'living with it' because it's currently not a curable disease."

Until she had received her diagnosis at the age of 49, Mrs Graham had never heard of the cancer.

"Being diagnosed friends and family would tend to tell you they know of others who have it. Without even searching, I've found about five people in my network who are affected by it," she said.

"We're all quite young, we all don't fit the mould. It mostly affects men over the age of 65.

"We're still working, we have young families, our journeys are very different from people who have been diagnosed later in life."

Myeloma Australia, the peak body for patients of the particular cancer, estimates that up to 800 people are diagnosed each year in NSW.

There is no full-time myeloma nurse in Wagga or the Riverina, and a senior hematologist is only able to attend Wagga every fortnight - less during COVID times.

"As a person living with myeloma, having someone local means I wouldn't have to start the story each time someone new comes," Mrs Graham said.

"The care that we do have in Wagga is excellent, it's great that we can get these specialists at all, but to have a local person would make a big difference."

While her treatment is mostly in Wagga now, at the beginning of her cancer journey the situation was very different.

In September 2019, Mrs Graham had to leave her family in Wagga and journey to Sydney for five weeks to have a stem cell transplant.

"My husband spent 10 days with me and my sister gave up her annual leave to come down from Queensland to help the kids [in Wagga]," she said.

Self-administered chemotherapy injections were gradually replaced by hospital blood work.

Three weeks before the transplant, Mrs Graham sat in a chair as still as she could for five full hours while blood was taken.

That filtered through a machine which harvested and separated her stem cells, ready to be transplanted back into her body, to effectively 'reset' her blood properties.

"After the transplant, you have no immunity, there's a high chance of infection," she said.

"There was no guarantee of success, so there were times when I considered not having the transplant and just spending what time I had left with my family.

"This side of it now, I'm very glad I did it."

Mrs Graham's experience was thankfully successful, and now with just one daily tablet to take, she says she hardly feels ill at all.

Others are not so fortunate. So to build awareness for the little-known cancer and its effects on thousands in Australia, Mrs Graham and her daughter Meg are campaigning to raise $10,000 for the cause in 10 months.

Meg, who is now 18, began the fundraiser for Myeloma Australia during her HSC last year.

With some sizable corporate sponsorship from Cootamundra's Jak + Jill Clothing and Opteon in Wagga, she is on track to raise $1000 each month and reaching her goal on June 21.

"It's a cause that's obviously close to my heart with my mum," said the 18-year-old.

"There's still a lot of research to be done, there's still cures that can be found and it's a worthwhile cause."

If Meg does achieve her target, she may qualify to be a contestant on the Adventure All-Stars TV show.

She is one of seven other contestant hopefuls who are raising research dollars for Myeloma Australia.

"The show has partnered with Myeloma Australia and some other charities, I think each episode will highlight a cause, so that will build awareness," Meg said.

Meg Graham's fundraising page can be found here.