Minoli De Silva faced two obstacles during her time on MasterChef.

The 34-year-old from the Northern Territory was eliminated early on in the competition, only to return during Second Chance Week. Last night, she went home for the last time during a double elimination.

But those obstacles can't compare to the hurdles she faced before the competition.

Watch: Things I say while watching MasterChef. Post continues below.

At 30, Minoli was diagnosed with Stage 3A breast cancer.

"In January 2016, I went and got a breast examination because there was a small lump. Then towards the end of that year, it started to grow noticeably bigger and I went into the doctors and immediately they were like, 'Go get checked'," she toldMamamia.

"I did a biopsy that day and literally within a week, they had harvested the eggs, they went through the egg preservation process and I went straight into chemotherapy treatment."

"[There was] no time to think," she added.

Following her diagnosis, Minoli went through six months of chemotherapy treatment, surgery and radiotherapy for five weeks. She handled it in the best possible way she could.

"I didn't really have time to think about," she said. "The worst-case scenario, which I guess is death, I just didn't feel like that was going to be my path even though the cancer was quite far progressed."

"I just know that your mental frame of mind really impacts how your body responds to stuff," she added.

"So I found when I went through treatment, I became this super zen version that I've never really seen before in myself. And I was like, hang on, why am I worrying about this?

"Stressing about this doesn't matter. Family's important and staying present and positive - all of that stuff kind of clarified during my chemotherapy treatment.

"I was really proud of how I then handled it because I didn't know that I would have been able to handle something like that so well."

During last Wednesday night's episode, Minoli explained that during her chemotherapy treatment, her mum would cook her these beautiful Sri Lankan curries but she couldn't eat them.

"I just didn't like eating my mum's food while I was going through treatment because you've still got this metallic taste in your mouth," she said.

"[But] when it's so full of flavour and so many yummy spices, it's so hard to say no.

"To tell her that I couldn't eat food that she made, because she put so much love into it, and she was only really doing all of that because I wasn't in a state to cook - it was heartbreaking on so many levels."