EXCLUSIVE — “I’ve wiped most of it, which I guess is a trauma response,” Kellie Finlayson tells nine.com.au of the day she was told she had cancer at age 25.
Kellie, now 30, was diagnosed with bowel cancer just months after welcoming daughter Sophia Jai in 2021. Within 24 hours, she was told it was stage four and given a 12-month prognosis.
“Because it was during COVID, times were quite random and weird in hospitals or medical situations anyway, but I was the last colonsocopy for the day,” Kellie, the wife of AFL star Jeremy Finlayson, recalls.
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“My husband and daughter, she was not quite three months old, were in the waiting room, which was weird because they weren’t allowed to drop me off.
“So I was like, ‘That’s nice, they’ve not made my baby stay outside’, but obviously it was for a reason, to help me through the conversation.
“I don’t remember a hell of a lot [of that day]. I remember getting the news and then being home, which is kind of scary. Lucky I wasn’t driving, because I wouldn’t have remembered getting home.”
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Two of her close girlfriends from school were at home already to support her, having heard the news. Her mum was also on the way, having caught a flight, and one of her Kellie’s friends helped go through the medical information to tell her mum more.
“It’s just so blurry. I don’t remember any details vividly, it’s all literally just like ‘this happened and this happened and this happened’,” she says.
“And within 24 hours, I was diagnosed stage four. So it was very quick.”
Kellie, whose bowel cancer metastasised in her lungs, recently marked her milestone 30th birthday – an age well past her prognosis.
“Thirty isn’t something that I should have seen, which is crazy, but given I was diagnosed at 25 this wasn’t something that was considered part of my future,” she says.
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“So, obviously, hitting that milestone was wild … I started treatment on my 26th birthday.”
There’s a special reason she was so determined to fight and make it to her 30th birthday: her family, and being a mother to Sophia.
”Thirty years is something I was kind of striving for, which is such a weird thing to say as, obviously, someone that’s so young.
“It was the milestone I was kind of hoping to get to, because if I hit 30, that means I got to see my daughter start school and all of these things that also come with being 30.
“My prognosis was 12 months, but there was never really any part of me that thought I wouldn’t make it that far.”
Kellie says the “strongest tool” she’s had in her “basket” is her mind – but she does, of course, have tough days.
“When I spiral, I’m terrified, genuinely, because I know that my mind has to be in the right place for me to keep going,” she says.
“My mindset’s not saving my life, but it is giving me the determination to get up and actually go to treatment, which is then saving my life.
“Or it’s getting me out of bed to go spend time with Sophia, which is then saving my life.”
“Given I was diagnosed at 25, [turning 30] wasn’t something that was considered part of my future.”
Kellie, who has written a book called There Must Be More, is supporting Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea for Cancer Council Australia, and she’s happy to use her voice and journey to help others.
“Given my position, with cancer and living with active treatment at the moment, people tend to listen a little bit deeper and understand that they’re not invincible and that [cancer] doesn’t discriminate,” she says.
Another message she’s hoping to get across is that anyone can be diagnosed with cancer at any age, even if you’re young, like Kellie was.
”It’s actually the leading cancer killer [for ages] 25 to 45 now, bowel cancer, which is crazy given that I fall into that time frame,” she says.
“I didn’t know that bowel cancer was a thing, which was really naive.
“And it also correlates with just, like, being a woman and having a menstrual cycle. If it’s not normal for us, then what’s the harm in getting checked?
“When I was diagnosed, I was shocked rather than kind of expecting it.”
Kellie wants people to “understand their body so they’re “able to identify when something’s wrong”.
“I feel like you have to understand your own normal or baseline,” she says.
“I get the question, obviously, all the time – how they can show up and help someone that’s going through something pretty similar?
“Think of the things that you don’t want to be doing and do those things for your friends, if that makes sense … do the washing and fold it!” she says with a laugh.
For cancer information and support call Cancer Council’s 13 11 20 Information and Support line.
For more information on Australia’s Biggest Morning Tea, click here.
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