Kellie Finlayson seemed to be living a dream life. She is married to the man of her dreams, Port Adelaide AFL star Jeremy Finlayson, and the couple shares daughter Sophia.
Having been diagnosed with Stage 3 bowel cancer in 2021 when she was 25, and only three months after Sophia’s birth, Kellie thought she may have beaten the disease.
Then she began experiencing tightness in her chest during a trip to Port Lincoln in December 2022.
”They found a large mass in my chest cavity,” Kellie tells 9Honey.
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Doctors thought it may be pneumonia, and she tried to enjoy Christmas with her family.
Further testing would reveal the terrifying truth. Kellie’s cancer had lingered in the background and eventually metastasized to her lungs.
Kellie is sharing her story to help raise awareness of the early signs of bowel cancer, recently joining the Jodi Lee Foundation as an ambassador while continuing her own treatment, which began with more chemotherapy and has now moved onto radiotherapy.
“My next treatment phase is targeted radiotherapy,” Kellie, 27, tells 9Honey.
“So eight rounds every second day for two-and-a-half weeks.”
She says her tumour markers are looking good but physically she’s “pretty ill” because she’s “full of chemo.”
“But give me a couple of days and I’ll be back to ‘normal,'” Kellie adds, with her trademark positivity.
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It was 2021, as she and Jeremy were settling into life as new parents, that Kellie would initially be diagnosed with bowel cancer.
“My earliest symptoms were tummy aches and irregular bowel movements almost five years ago now,” she says.
“But the blood in my poo was the symptom that sent me straight to the GP.”
She recalls prior to her pregnancy having some “bowel troubles” and booking in for a colonoscopy only for it to be cancelled due to the pandemic.
“When I became pregnant with Sophia in November 2020 all my symptoms went away, so I never thought about it again,” she said.
However, the symptoms returned following her daughter’s birth.
At first, she thought she may be suffering from Crohn’s disease or irritable bowel symptoms, or maybe a food intolerance.
After discovering blood in her stools, the colonoscopy was urgently rescheduled and Kellie awoke to see Jeremy and Sophia in the waiting room.
Having been told nobody would be allowed in the waiting rooms due to the pandemic, she “immediately panicked.”
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That day, Kellie was told she had Stage 3 bowel cancer, with a “large blockage” found in her bowels.”
Just 24 hours later, she would be sitting in the surgeon’s office struggling to process her options before undergoing more tests and scans and a colostomy bag was fitted to help her body dispose of waste.
“The obstruction I had in my bowel could have potentially led to sepsis, so thankfully the bag was just a temporary way to ensure this didn’t happen,” she explained.
Months of chemotherapy, radiotherapy, medical appointments and blood tests ensued, plus a final surgery to remove the last of the tumour.
At one point she was in ICU for 12 days, barely able to see her daughter.
By July 2022, scans showed Kellie’s treatments had worked.
“I had no tumours left, although seven lymph nodes still showed microscopic cancer cells,” she recalls.
“They could never say that I was cancer-free and in remission because of these seven lymph nodes, but the surgeon was quite optimistic about my progress, and I felt hopeful for the future.”
Five months later, she would be told her cancer had spread.
Kellie and Jeremy, who were already engaged, decided to wed ahead of her resuming treatment, marrying in March this year.
She also signed on as an ambassador for the Jodi Lee Foundation which has given her purpose as she faces this new battle.
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“Obviously with anything in the public eye there’s ups and downs, but without the bad days we wouldn’t be able to appreciate the good ones,” she says, adding she is “proud of the impact” she is having by sharing her story.
“I have an overwhelming response every time I share something about my journey, my DMs are full of people either asking for advice, telling me they’ve sought medical advice or that they’ve unfortunately been given a similar diagnosis,” she writes.
“I have lived experience and I’m not a trained professional in any capacity, which means that I can’t do very much, other than encourage the people that reach out to me to see a doctor.
“And if they’re in my DMs concerned about something then clearly they know in their heart that they should be speaking to a professional about whatever they’ve got going on.”
Kellie does admit her “mental health is a little neglected.”
“I go through moments of complete denial to moments of pride in myself for the awareness that I am raising, to moments of joy when I’m at home hiding from the world with my perfect family by my side,” she says.
She has started the process of “seeking help for my trauma” and plans to focus on her mental health in the “months/years to come.”
For now Kellie says she feels good “80 per cent of the time.”
Her message to others: “Go and see your doctor. Trust your gut. It could save your life.”
Kellie is the face of the Jodi Lee Foundation’s ‘Trust Your Gut’ 2023 campaign. Find out more by visiting the website and using the Symptom Checker tool.
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