Speaker 1: We'd like to acknowledge that traditional custodians of the land
Speaker 1: on which this podcast was produced, the Galligall people of
Speaker 1: the Orination. We pay our respects to elder's past and present.
Speaker 2: It's November twenty twenty one and we're in Adelaid's Flinders
Speaker 2: Hospital with Kelly Finlayson. Kelly gave birth to baby Sophia
Speaker 2: just three months ago, her first child with AFL star
Speaker 2: Jeremy Finlayson. But today she isn't here for a postpartum checkup.
Speaker 2: She's here for a kolonoscopy, the one she's been waiting
Speaker 2: months for, which was canceled in the height of the pandemic.
Speaker 2: Almost immediately the kolonoscopy takes a turn for the worst.
Speaker 2: The gastro enterologist turns to Kelly and says, this is
Speaker 2: what cancer looks like for the twenty five year old mum.
Speaker 2: Her world changes in an instant. In the days, she'd
Speaker 2: be told she has stage four bow cancer. I'm at
Speaker 2: Middleton and this is head Game today, resilience in the
Speaker 2: face of an unthinkable diagnosis. Kelly Finlayson, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for joining me on my podcast head Game. Now
Speaker 2: cop talk about head Game and you're someone that needs
Speaker 2: to have your head in the game. You need to
Speaker 2: be headstrong with what's going on in your life at
Speaker 2: the moment. Wow, we'll get into that very very shortly.
Speaker 2: But how are you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm actually doing okay today.
Speaker 2: Okay? Is okay? Kelly? Take me back to your childhood.
Speaker 3: So I lived a pretty mundane, easy, ordinary childhood. I
Speaker 3: have a younger brother, mum and dad, same house, still
Speaker 3: live in the same house that I was born in.
Speaker 3: They do, I don't, but so yeah, like a pretty
Speaker 3: easy country town, Port Lincoln, so right on the beach
Speaker 3: here an essay, and played every sport you can think of.
Speaker 3: So I was just a busy little girl with lots
Speaker 3: of energy and not much has changed. Really, just a confident,
Speaker 3: little independent person.
Speaker 2: Sounds like you just see it, like myself. A normal
Speaker 2: upbring in, happy, go lucky. What was your first ever job?
Speaker 3: Yeah, my mum was a manager of a hotel, So
Speaker 3: a housekeeper.
Speaker 2: Oh really? Yeah, so you went around changing the sheets
Speaker 2: and clean bathrooms and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very underage, but that's how we would get like
Speaker 3: that's my pocket money, I guess, would be whatever four
Speaker 3: hours on a Sunday morning or whatever, and that would
Speaker 3: be me housekeeping. Yep.
Speaker 2: How old are you if you don't mind me asking, Kelly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm twenty eight. I'm twenty nine in December.
Speaker 2: Twenty nine, December. And what age were you when you
Speaker 2: met Jeremy?
Speaker 3: I was twenty one at a Justin Bieber concert.
Speaker 2: Take me back to that, Justinean, How did you set
Speaker 2: eyes on him? And how was it love at first
Speaker 2: sight or was it just a case of exchange phone
Speaker 2: numbers and we're going on a date?
Speaker 3: Exchanged snapchats because we were young twenty one year olds.
Speaker 3: But I didn't actually meet him at the concert. I
Speaker 3: was just insandnely for the concert and we met at
Speaker 3: a pub later. But he is a big Justin Bieber fan,
Speaker 3: so I like to drop that in.
Speaker 2: Yes, Jeremy, listen, he's is it a believer? A belief?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it.
Speaker 2: So that moment changes your life, really, doesn't it. You
Speaker 2: You meet Jeremy and did the relationship develop quite fast?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Very quick? Moving our relationship so again, yeah, rekindled
Speaker 3: in twenty nineteen when I moved back to Australia and
Speaker 3: then by June twenty twenty we were living together. So
Speaker 3: six months later really.
Speaker 2: No, messing around their kedesis later, are you moving because
Speaker 2: that's serious, right, moving in together?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, it was the time of COVID, so it
Speaker 3: was either moving together or in no, one'm going to
Speaker 3: see each other again.
Speaker 2: Did it feel nice? Did it feel good during COVID
Speaker 2: that you had each other?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Definitely. I think that obviously fast tracked a lot
Speaker 3: of people's relationships, but it definitely made it, I guess
Speaker 3: known that we were the people for each other.
Speaker 2: And when did you start realizing that you had a
Speaker 2: few issues or you had a few symptoms or maybe
Speaker 2: need to go to hospital.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the first time that I actually sought help
Speaker 3: was at the start of twenty twenty two days actually
Speaker 3: before lockdown happened in Victorious, So I had a colonostu
Speaker 3: to be booked for the twenty second of March, and
Speaker 3: then obviously locked down and elective procedures got canceled, so
Speaker 3: I never actually got the procedure, but I did seek
Speaker 3: help that month. But looking back now, I've had issues
Speaker 3: for up to probably five years prior to diagnosis.
Speaker 2: And what are or what were these issues?
Speaker 3: So in frequency, in bow movements, weight fluctuation, A lot
Speaker 3: of the issues I guess that I was having were
Speaker 3: really common with just being a female, So like abdominal
Speaker 3: bloating usually once a month, which obviously comes with the
Speaker 3: mental cycle as well, the pain there as well, the
Speaker 3: changing weight, the changeing tiredness. Like, all of the symptoms
Speaker 3: that I were having, I guess weren't uncommon, but the
Speaker 3: way that I was having them were probably more often
Speaker 3: than others were.
Speaker 2: And what was the moment Why did you decide why
Speaker 2: I need to go and check this out? Because if
Speaker 2: you say it's been going on for five years, you're
Speaker 2: obviously just thinking that these are normal problems, just that
Speaker 2: they go away. You know, it's just just the monthly
Speaker 2: thing that happens. But what made what was that mindset
Speaker 2: switch where you thought, actually, no, I need to go
Speaker 2: and get this checked out.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I ended up having blood in my store,
Speaker 3: well on the toilet paper, so obviously I couldn't tell
Speaker 3: whether that was in my store or not. But that's
Speaker 3: what made me go seek more help. I was seeing
Speaker 3: an actual path. I thought maybe I was intolerant or something,
Speaker 3: maybe I had yeah ibs or something like that. I
Speaker 3: don't know, something obviously not right, But it was kind
Speaker 3: of cool to be lactose intolerant at that time or
Speaker 3: have a gluten intolerant, so they didn't really take me
Speaker 3: very seriously. And then yeah, obviously I had blood in
Speaker 3: a stall sample, so that's why I had the colonists
Speaker 3: could be booked, which was later canceled as an elective procedure.
Speaker 2: Wow. So do you think they didn't take you seriously
Speaker 2: because you were young? You know you? Yeah, agile and
Speaker 2: just a case of you know, you don't need you
Speaker 2: don't need to check out, you're good to go.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well at that point I was twenty four, so
Speaker 3: I was quite young. I was writing marathons like I
Speaker 3: was the pinnacle of health. Nothing that would scream about cancer,
Speaker 3: do you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, And during lockdown, the relationship with Jeremy Blossoms
Speaker 2: and you fell pregnant.
Speaker 3: Yeah. COVID babies, there's lots of them. Yeah, so we
Speaker 3: actually felt pregnant at the six months after we were
Speaker 3: living together, so it was really quickly turned around.
Speaker 2: So you don't mess around, Kelly, No.
Speaker 3: We don't. When you know, you know exactly when you know,
Speaker 3: you know. And we just spent three months in Queensland
Speaker 3: with all of our teammates for Jeremy's teamates babies, and
Speaker 3: I guess he saw how maternal I was, so when
Speaker 3: we did fell pregnant, it was a no brainer and
Speaker 3: obviously that was something we're really excited about. We ended
Speaker 3: up having Sophia for giving birth to Sophia in the
Speaker 3: hubs the next year, so that was really interesting. Jeremy
Speaker 3: guests had to call time on his season otherwise he
Speaker 3: would risk being locked out of the state that we
Speaker 3: were already a foreign state. We're already in Queensland, whereas
Speaker 3: we were living in Sydney. So yeah, it was a
Speaker 3: big messy time of our life, but the best time
Speaker 3: of our life all the same time.
Speaker 2: Is there anything that you know that stood out? Is
Speaker 2: there anything that because you went through your whole pregnancy
Speaker 2: with all your checkups and all your tests and then
Speaker 2: you give birth, was there any major signs or major
Speaker 2: sort of symptoms where you know, the doctor, the nurse
Speaker 2: or whatever would go well, something's not right here, or
Speaker 2: was no signs?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was nothing more than I'd already experienced. I
Speaker 3: did present to the hospital the emergency department a few
Speaker 3: times prior to my pregnancy with the pains and stuff,
Speaker 3: but every time I would just get told I had
Speaker 3: COVID and to go home and have and rest, which
Speaker 3: at the time, I guess everyone was scared of this
Speaker 3: viral disease, so I can't blame them. But during my pregnancy,
Speaker 3: I had a lot of pressure in my pelvis, which
Speaker 3: obviously makes sense now, but at the time we thought
Speaker 3: we just had a big baby. So it wasn't until
Speaker 3: she was born and she was tiny that we were like,
Speaker 3: where do all this pain come from? And also when
Speaker 3: giving birth, they my placenter was like it looked like
Speaker 3: a state had been like cut up basically, Like it
Speaker 3: wasn't a big bore, a big plate. It was like
Speaker 3: all cut up meat, basically my placenter. So once they
Speaker 3: saw that, they were like, there's something not right here. Yeah,
Speaker 3: But they were the only signs really that something else
Speaker 3: was wrong, and I wasn't just a pregnant woman.
Speaker 2: How hard was it to get an appointment or booking
Speaker 2: that you needed because you already had it counceled, you
Speaker 2: had it counseled before you gave birth, and now they
Speaker 2: see these signs. How long after to you actually revisit
Speaker 2: the hospital for your colonoscopy?
Speaker 3: So I was in complete denial and kind of just
Speaker 3: putting everything I was experiencing down to being postpartum. I
Speaker 3: guess I never had another berth to compare it to
Speaker 3: to know that this wasn't really normal, Like not going
Speaker 3: to the toilet for ten days at a time, and
Speaker 3: then when I'm going, I'm going fifteen times in an
Speaker 3: hour like that. I didn't realize that that's not normal.
Speaker 3: And I was terrified to go the toil after giving birth.
Speaker 3: Don't get me wrong, most women are, but I guess
Speaker 3: I just had an extreme case of that. And it
Speaker 3: wasn't until three months postpartum that Jeremy actually made a
Speaker 3: joke about me needing a porterloo because of the frequency
Speaker 3: that I needed to go every time we went for
Speaker 3: a drive, I'd make him fully to the service station
Speaker 3: or whatever it may be, and he, yeah, made a
Speaker 3: joke about needing a portaloo. And then that was kind
Speaker 3: of my last straw that I didn't think was very funny,
Speaker 3: and went and saw a GP who had me booked
Speaker 3: to see a gastro ontologist the next day. So once
Speaker 3: she heard my symptoms, which I'm really quite lucky because
Speaker 3: I had just moved back to here, to Adelaide. We
Speaker 3: got a trade with Jeremy's work. Had only been here
Speaker 3: for two weeks and had to go see just a
Speaker 3: bolk build GP, the closest one that I could find
Speaker 3: the next available appointment, and I got really lucky that
Speaker 3: it was a female GP that took me really seriously
Speaker 3: as soon as I told her, I guess what was
Speaker 3: going on?
Speaker 2: And take me back to the day that you go.
Speaker 2: It's three months after you've given birth, or they're thereabouts.
Speaker 2: You go back in for your for your colonoscopy. Take
Speaker 2: me through that day. Was it just you just thought
Speaker 2: you're going to go in do this and then you're
Speaker 2: going to walk out and you get the results whenever.
Speaker 2: What was going through your mind on that day?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well, the hardest part of a kolonoscopy is the prep,
Speaker 3: which I learned the hard way, and when you have
Speaker 3: a complete bower block, it's quite hard to pass the prep.
Speaker 3: I thought that I was just constipated, but obviously it
Speaker 3: turned out that there was a fat tumor in my ass.
Speaker 3: I say that very easily because that's just how it is.
Speaker 3: But yeah, so I was at home with Sophia, so
Speaker 3: my three month old breastfeeding still by myself because Jeremy
Speaker 3: just started this new job here in Adelaide and he
Speaker 3: had to do all the media and stuff around that,
Speaker 3: and I was taking the prep at the same time.
Speaker 3: And he got home from wherever he had to be
Speaker 3: that day and I was asleep on the shower floor
Speaker 3: with the shower running, and she was asleep on the
Speaker 3: bath mat next to me. So it kind of puts
Speaker 3: in perspective how hard the prep was on my body
Speaker 3: because I couldn't pass it the way you meant to.
Speaker 3: I was throwing it back up. So that was the
Speaker 3: morning of my colonoscopy. I presented to the day suite
Speaker 3: at about midday. My kolonoscopy was booked for about two
Speaker 3: o'clock that afternoon, And the part that I was the
Speaker 3: most angry about, I guess was the fact that I
Speaker 3: hadn't eaten for twenty four hours and it was kept
Speaker 3: being delayed, which in hindsight obviously like really not the
Speaker 3: biggest deal. I'm angry, Oh, I was, And when I
Speaker 3: woke up and the nurses being so beautiful to me,
Speaker 3: and like, obviously they knew exactly what was going on,
Speaker 3: but I thought they were just being so nice because
Speaker 3: I was starving. Yeah, and then I woke up thinking
Speaker 3: not much of it. Maybe I'd get given a diet
Speaker 3: plan or something like that. Like I had this little
Speaker 3: baby that I had to look after. I couldn't be
Speaker 3: looking after myself. I walked into the gastrotologist's little room
Speaker 3: and he just turned around a piece of paper which
Speaker 3: had photos of the insides of my bow. Obviously I
Speaker 3: didn't know that that's what it was. But when he
Speaker 3: turned it around, he's like, this is what bow cancer
Speaker 3: looks like. And I was like, oh, yeah, and what
Speaker 3: does my bows look like? And he's like, this is
Speaker 3: your bow.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, that's how they broke.
Speaker 3: That, that's how it was delivered.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what bow cancer looks like.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I think that he does this every day
Speaker 3: of his life. That it's kind of like if we
Speaker 3: don't say it like this and we make a big
Speaker 3: deal about it, I don't know, it was so weird.
Speaker 2: Well, it is a pretty big deal, to be fair,
Speaker 2: And what's your first initial thought process after that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I kind of yeah, I just went blank
Speaker 3: a little bit. I didn't give him much, so he
Speaker 3: kept giving me more information. I guess he was just
Speaker 3: speaking and speaking and speaking and speaking, And basically we
Speaker 3: left off with he'd already spoken to his mate, a
Speaker 3: surgeon here in Adelaide, and I was booked in to
Speaker 3: see him tomorrow, like the day after after hours, So
Speaker 3: as soon as he'd knocked off from work, basically he
Speaker 3: was just squeezing me in And that's how we left off.
Speaker 3: So I left off with very little knowledge, knowing that
Speaker 3: I had bow cancer with a piece of paper that
Speaker 3: has photos of it, and knowing that I was going
Speaker 3: to see the surgeon the next day.
Speaker 2: Wow, so that's the only news you get. You don't
Speaker 2: notice severity of it. Obviously, the next day you're going
Speaker 2: to meet someone who's going to really really break it down.
Speaker 2: What was that that period before that next meeting the
Speaker 2: next day? What's going through your head? Where's your head at?
Speaker 2: Where are you at?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I actually sat in the back seat of
Speaker 3: the car with Sophia in her bascinette, which I hadn't
Speaker 3: done for ages. I feel like I couldn't let her
Speaker 3: out of my sight. It was almost like she was
Speaker 3: gone without any even starting anything or even knowing what
Speaker 3: I was doing. Like that bond that we had was
Speaker 3: about to be broken. Like It's like I knew before
Speaker 3: I knew it was animalistic, almost how destrayed I was.
Speaker 3: My husband, well, my boyfriend at the time, was on
Speaker 3: the phone to my mum basically telling her to get
Speaker 3: on the next flight with Again, we had no information,
Speaker 3: so we couldn't even tell her the severity of it
Speaker 3: because we didn't know. He also caught a couple of
Speaker 3: friends that were meeting me. They were at home when
Speaker 3: I got home for them to try and help out,
Speaker 3: I guess, But at the same time, I was like
Speaker 3: not wanting help because I was like, I'm still able
Speaker 3: to look after my own daughter. Like I'm like, I've
Speaker 3: got a diagnosis, whatever it may be, but I'm still
Speaker 3: nothing's happened, nothing's changed in the last day other than
Speaker 3: a few words.
Speaker 2: Psychologically, you're looking at your daughter, do you does it
Speaker 2: break you? Does it? Or are you just thinking? Right?
Speaker 2: I need to find out the severity of it. I
Speaker 2: need to find out exactly what it is.
Speaker 3: You know?
Speaker 2: Or is your world literally crumbling in that car?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Like I was, I was nowhere. I was literally nowhere.
Speaker 3: My thoughts were complete, Marsh. I was incomplete denial or
Speaker 3: I had I'd never heard of cancer and had it
Speaker 3: linked to anyone younger than my grandparents. So it was
Speaker 3: like it was just a weird, really weird reality to
Speaker 3: be living in, especially knowing that it was directed at me.
Speaker 3: Wasn't like I wasn't hearing on the news. I wasn't.
Speaker 3: It was like it was real and I kind of
Speaker 3: had to try and process that while also trying to
Speaker 3: keep my head my head strong, funnily enough so that
Speaker 3: my husband didn't crumble because I needed him to be
Speaker 3: able to parent as well as me try to parent.
Speaker 3: It was just there was so much happening, but at
Speaker 3: the same time we didn't even know what we had
Speaker 3: ahead of us, so it was so hard to try
Speaker 3: and put things in place. But yeah, it was wild,
Speaker 3: and I don't I don't think he really realized what
Speaker 3: that was going to mean for us until obviously we'd
Speaker 3: sat down and we'd gone through it.
Speaker 2: How does the next day play out? And did do
Speaker 2: your parents fly in and who's there when you realize
Speaker 2: the severity of the bow cancer that you have.
Speaker 3: So one of my friends is quite medically inclined, and
Speaker 3: she happened to show up that night that I was diagnosed,
Speaker 3: so she was going through the paperwork and I guess
Speaker 3: filling everyone in that was contacting me because I just
Speaker 3: went completely mute and didn't speak to anyone, didn't reply
Speaker 3: to anyone, didn't answer phone calls. So she was, I guess,
Speaker 3: being that person that everyone went through, and she could
Speaker 3: tell mum just by looking at the photos that it
Speaker 3: definitely wasn't stage one or two, potentially stage three, but
Speaker 3: looking it was huge and it was everywhere like it's
Speaker 3: probably going to be stage four. But so I bring
Speaker 3: her with me to the surgeon's appointment, and my mum
Speaker 3: rocked up that morning as well. So there was my mum,
Speaker 3: my best friend, my Jeremy, my boyfriend, and Sophia were
Speaker 3: all in the surgeon's office and he just had to
Speaker 3: try and I guess explain. He quite literally drew pictures
Speaker 3: to explain kind of what was going to go on,
Speaker 3: because it was going in one ear and out the other.
Speaker 3: But it wasn't until we had scan the following week
Speaker 3: that we realized I guess that it had spread elsewhere,
Speaker 3: so that it was stage.
Speaker 2: Four, stage four cancer. What is stage four cancer?
Speaker 3: Yes, it's actually stage four terminal cancer, which we wow.
Speaker 3: The media loves to pick up that word, but it's
Speaker 3: essentially just means that it's spread from the primary tumor,
Speaker 3: which was in my rectum, to another organ. So if
Speaker 3: it's only spread to the lymph nodes, it would be
Speaker 3: stage three. If it was the primary tumor, and just
Speaker 3: outside of the primary tumor in those linkhodes I be
Speaker 3: stage two and stage one is just that tumor.
Speaker 2: So you literally get told that you've got terminal cancer,
Speaker 2: the worst possible outcome that you could have, you know,
Speaker 2: hopeful and wished for. What's the atmosphere like in the
Speaker 2: room when that word comes out, you've got terminal cancer?
Speaker 3: It was a lot of confusion, I guess, only because
Speaker 3: we've just heard of this cancer and now it's terminal.
Speaker 3: And my surgeon's body language went from we will cure
Speaker 3: you you're twenty five years old to or will try
Speaker 3: prolong your life as soon as he realized the extent
Speaker 3: as well. It's not one that's easily cured, but it
Speaker 3: is curable. About cancer is curable, it's just I'm one
Speaker 3: of the unlucky cases that have yet to hit remissions.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was a lot at the time, and
Speaker 3: all I was worried about was my fertility, and I
Speaker 3: guess the collateral damage that I know cancer brings obviously
Speaker 3: a three month old, and that was my forefront of
Speaker 3: my mind. Even having this diagnosis. All I was thinking
Speaker 3: about was her future and her having siblings. And my
Speaker 3: surgeon looked me dead in the eye and said, would
Speaker 3: you rather give her a sibling or a mum? So
Speaker 3: that kind of was my wake up call, like, holy shit,
Speaker 3: this is real.
Speaker 2: Wow, how does that affect you as a mother.
Speaker 3: It's like I've failed her?
Speaker 2: Why was that?
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I guess you have all these ideas and preconceived,
Speaker 3: like lived experience of how you've grown up and how
Speaker 3: you want your family to grow up, and then like
Speaker 3: this little three month old, she can't do anything. She
Speaker 3: doesn't have an opinion to be like I'd rather siblings,
Speaker 3: Like obviously she's never gonna say that, but do you
Speaker 3: know what I mean? Like, she doesn't get a say
Speaker 3: in this, and we dictate how her life lives. And
Speaker 3: in that moment, I was basically selfishly choosing myself over
Speaker 3: her life.
Speaker 2: And how does Jeremy and your family take the news,
Speaker 2: Because again, going from zero to one hundred, like you said,
Speaker 2: I've got cancer, then terminal and cah, How did your
Speaker 2: family and especially Jeremy, your husband, what was there you know?
Speaker 2: Initial response? I suppose.
Speaker 3: I don't think anyone really processed it until we were
Speaker 3: out of her, if that makes sense. So, like the
Speaker 3: nine months of doing the treatment and the surgeries, because
Speaker 3: it was surgery after surgery, it wasn't until we had
Speaker 3: no appointment booked that we were like, that just happened,
Speaker 3: and now we've got all of this to deal with.
Speaker 3: And that was probably the hardest part because we weren't
Speaker 3: then relying on any medical stuff. We had to rely
Speaker 3: on our own thoughts and our own I guess decisions,
Speaker 3: and yeah, we really had to guess, take control of
Speaker 3: what had just happened, and deal with the collateral, which
Speaker 3: no one talks about. When you're coming out of this battle,
Speaker 3: as they call it, is what you're left without. A
Speaker 3: lot's taken from you, and it's not just taken from
Speaker 3: the patient, it's taken from everyone around you. My mom
Speaker 3: had to quit her job, so she lost income. My
Speaker 3: mom had to move in with us, so she was
Speaker 3: away from my dad for nine months, so then he
Speaker 3: was without her. He had to learn how to cook
Speaker 3: and clean, which she's never done in his life. My husband,
Speaker 3: lall fiance at the time, was without a mother. He
Speaker 3: was being a dad and a mum or relying on
Speaker 3: my mom to help him parent, which it's just not
Speaker 3: something you would ever expect. And obviously they had to
Speaker 3: grow a really good connection and learn how to parent
Speaker 3: together as in laws. So yeah, there was a lot happening,
Speaker 3: and I was kind of just in bed, rodding away,
Speaker 3: trying to leave each day, trying my best when I could.
Speaker 3: But there's not a lot of good days that I
Speaker 3: had in those first nine months.
Speaker 2: So but you've got to quick, right, You've got you
Speaker 2: get this news terminal. Time's not on your side. What's
Speaker 2: the first first thing that happens? And I you know, treatment,
Speaker 2: how do you how do you progress with going right? Terminal?
Speaker 2: Does that mean that it's irreversible or like you said,
Speaker 2: you know they can cure bow camp. But that's so
Speaker 2: what's the what's the the immediate treatment for that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you said, as soon as I said terminal,
Speaker 3: I assumed irreversible and obviously hoped and prayed and like
Speaker 3: promised myself that I'd get through it. But the reality
Speaker 3: was I was about to go through a hell of
Speaker 3: a fight to try and even stay alive each day.
Speaker 3: But my first point of call was weaning for breastfeeding.
Speaker 3: And I obviously you've never done that, you're a man,
Speaker 3: but weaning from breastfeeding hurts. It's a painful experience. And
Speaker 3: then because I stopped breastfeeding, I got my first period,
Speaker 3: which is a whole nother game. As I was literally
Speaker 3: going to the hospital to get a stoma, so my
Speaker 3: bows reverted to my stomach to pass. Because I had
Speaker 3: a block, I couldn't go to the toilet, so I
Speaker 3: was laying in the bed with these two fake stonmas
Speaker 3: to choose which side to have it on. When I
Speaker 3: got my first period, and I had massed artists because
Speaker 3: I was weaning from breastfeeding. So that was all within
Speaker 3: seven days of diagnosis, So it was absolutely crazy. I
Speaker 3: like what I tell you, I had no time to
Speaker 3: process it, and as much as I'm so glad, I
Speaker 3: didn't because I wasn't able to, I guess go down
Speaker 3: any dark thought paths or whatever. But yeah, I had
Speaker 3: no time to process anything. It was just go, go, go,
Speaker 3: trust what the doctor's saying and do what you told basically.
Speaker 2: And what does that process look like. So you get
Speaker 2: the news. I suppose they give you a program straight away.
Speaker 2: What does that program look like?
Speaker 3: Yep? So the stoma and then on my twenty sixth
Speaker 3: birthday of the week after, I started radiotherapy every day
Speaker 3: for five weeks as well as oral chemotherapy, So that
Speaker 3: was over Christmas. That was from the sixth of December
Speaker 3: until mid jan and then I had two weeks off
Speaker 3: because who two weeks off before I started intravenous chemotherapy
Speaker 3: for six months. So yeah, from November the twenty seventh
Speaker 3: when I had my stoma surgery to what the end
Speaker 3: of July, I was just go, go, go with treatment.
Speaker 2: Do you feel like that, Well, it obviously did robbed
Speaker 2: your time as a mother. You know, you've got Sophia.
Speaker 2: Obviously the main thing is yourself to get to get treated.
Speaker 2: But how does it affect your relationship with Sophia?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I went from her obviously needing me and
Speaker 3: no one else really realistically because I was her breastfeeding
Speaker 3: parent too, not many months later having her come to
Speaker 3: the see me in hospital because I was there a lot,
Speaker 3: and no longer like if she wanted a bottle, no
Speaker 3: longer being like mummy, mummy. It was always Namma, which.
Speaker 2: Is my mum.
Speaker 3: So I guess I went from watching her need me
Speaker 3: to not need me at all, and it was absolutely crazy.
Speaker 3: It was definitely the hardest part was watching that, I guess,
Speaker 3: disconnect between the two of us.
Speaker 2: And how did you deal with that psychologically? How did
Speaker 2: you think to yourself? Right, you know, I've got to
Speaker 2: got no choice, I've got to get through this. It
Speaker 2: must have been horrible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was, like I said, the hardest part, But
Speaker 3: it was definitely. There was a point where I was
Speaker 3: almost jealous or envious of the people in my daughter's
Speaker 3: life that she called five women in her life mum
Speaker 3: before she realized that she only had one mom like
Speaker 3: she had all these people, and I had to I
Speaker 3: guess I had to really teach myself to know that
Speaker 3: they were there to help and they weren't trying to
Speaker 3: step on my toes. They were doing things because I couldn't.
Speaker 3: It took a lot for me to realize that she
Speaker 3: was lucky to have them, not unlucky to not have me,
Speaker 3: If that makes sense, like it, Yeah, I had to
Speaker 3: play a lot of mind games with myself. I guess
Speaker 3: rephrasing things or flipping the switch and making sure that
Speaker 3: I could really be grateful rather than absolutely hating on
Speaker 3: these people that were doing everything for me, not against me.
Speaker 2: Were you given a timeline, are you in your head
Speaker 2: as well? Are you planning for worst case scenario?
Speaker 3: So we were working twelve week blocks, myself and my
Speaker 3: medical professionals. So once we got through each twelve week block,
Speaker 3: that was another scan, and I guess that would tell
Speaker 3: us what the next twelve weeks would look like. So
Speaker 3: my first year of diagnosis was definitely in those twelve
Speaker 3: week blocks, and maybe sometimes six weeks, depending on I
Speaker 3: guess what stage we were at. But I never I
Speaker 3: never thought that it would beat me. I never it
Speaker 3: never consumed my mind at all at all.
Speaker 2: Never.
Speaker 3: I was never giving in to the disease. I was
Speaker 3: always stronger than it. People would suggest like writing books
Speaker 3: for Sophia for different milestones, or putting my voice into
Speaker 3: a teddy Bear or all these things, but I did
Speaker 3: none of that because I genuinely believed that I would
Speaker 3: be there to see those milestones and I would be
Speaker 3: able to tell her that I loved her. She didn't
Speaker 3: need a Teddy Bear to tell her that she loved,
Speaker 3: that she was loved. So yeah, I think by not
Speaker 3: giving into these things, and like even like my life insurance,
Speaker 3: they were like, yeah, you can have it, you're dying.
Speaker 3: I was like, absolutely not. I need that for when
Speaker 3: I do die. So but I believe that if I
Speaker 3: took that, that would be like some sort of calm
Speaker 3: or me accepting that I was dying. And I didn't. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I didn't let my body believe that I was dying.
Speaker 3: And I obviously I'm still here three years later. So
Speaker 3: whatever I'm doing, I'm doing okay.
Speaker 2: And the pross Is it painful?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 2: Is it shocking? Is there a physical change with yourself
Speaker 2: during the period after?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was really concerned about losing my hair.
Speaker 3: I think any woman would be. But the chemotherapy that
Speaker 3: I was on, I didn't lose my hair, so I
Speaker 3: guess that was that's your main appearance as a woman,
Speaker 3: especially when you have long I had long, blonde hair,
Speaker 3: So this is not this is my regrowth because I
Speaker 3: did end up losing my hair eventually, and then yeah,
Speaker 3: so I looked like me, which also helped people treat
Speaker 3: me like me and not like a patient, which allowed
Speaker 3: me to act like me, which was really really helpful.
Speaker 3: But I did. I lost a shit ton of weight.
Speaker 3: I mean I had a stoma, so I had a
Speaker 3: foreign object on my stomach. I didn't. I wasn't the
Speaker 3: normal mum that she should have had. But I was
Speaker 3: as good as I possibly could be. It was hard.
Speaker 3: I was allergic to one of the brands of that chemotherapy,
Speaker 3: which is why when I did relapse, I had to
Speaker 3: change chemotherapy, which meant lost my hair. But yeah, it
Speaker 3: was I was on my deathbed. I was getting anaphyletic
Speaker 3: reactions every three weeks to this chemotherapy, so I was
Speaker 3: I was essentially dying every three weeks just to get better.
Speaker 2: It must take its toll on your body, on your headspace,
Speaker 2: on the family, on you know, the people around you.
Speaker 2: How who's been the obviously Jeremy, I assume has been
Speaker 2: a rock for you, But how important it is to
Speaker 2: have those positive people around you in order for you
Speaker 2: to maintain your positive mindset. Because I love that you
Speaker 2: went through that process of you know, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to give up. I'm not going to plan for the worst.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to tell myself that, you know, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to be hear, how important is it to
Speaker 2: have those people around you to support you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I got so lucky, so lucky with a little
Speaker 3: community or village that I had around me. They really
Speaker 3: allowed me to be me still, and they allowed me
Speaker 3: to not just be this patient. Obviously they were there
Speaker 3: for me when I needed that help, especially because chemotherapy
Speaker 3: does it knocks you, but they also allowed me to
Speaker 3: do as much as I possibly could, and they allowed
Speaker 3: me to still be a human, which was so so
Speaker 3: great and it helped me get through completely. My medical
Speaker 3: team was just insane. They were so supportive, Like my
Speaker 3: surgeon literally left his eighteenth his daughter's eighteenth birthday to
Speaker 3: come and see me to make sure that I was
Speaker 3: okay in hospital one night. Like the things that people did,
Speaker 3: I don't didn't realize at the time how much I
Speaker 3: needed it, But now looking back, it's incredible, and I
Speaker 3: know how much this affects so many more people than
Speaker 3: just the patient, which at the time, again, you're very
Speaker 3: much selfish and just trying to get through it, and
Speaker 3: you think everything's just being like only you're being affected.
Speaker 3: But now, yeah, looking back, the amount of people that
Speaker 3: lost their life that year, as well, is just crazy.
Speaker 2: The treatment it's in blocks, and after three months is
Speaker 2: that you just get given the h this isn't and
Speaker 2: you relapse. That's when you start. That's when you go right, listen.
Speaker 3: I had a major surgery and they said there was
Speaker 3: no evidence of disease, and what did that look like?
Speaker 3: Antior a lower ultra lower anterior resection. So they removed
Speaker 3: my inner sphincter, my rectum, my sigmoid colon, and part
Speaker 3: of my colon, so a whole chunk of my bower basically. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so they removed that and then they said there's no
Speaker 3: evidence of disease, which is obviously the words you want
Speaker 3: to hear. I wish I got remission. I've never gotten that,
Speaker 3: but yeah, and then only I had my stoma reversed
Speaker 3: three months after that, and then in December that year,
Speaker 3: So a few months later I was relapsed and it
Speaker 3: was in my lung, it was in my pelverse, it
Speaker 3: was in my stomach, it was everywhere.
Speaker 2: And is it still there?
Speaker 3: So I mopped out all up with chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
Speaker 3: Was doing really well, was really stable. I've never been
Speaker 3: no evidence of disease since then, but I've been really
Speaker 3: stable and being able to live a life like an
Speaker 3: actual life and not being on my deathbed each week
Speaker 3: like my new oncologists has just managed to. I guess,
Speaker 3: make sure quality of life is also met, knowing that
Speaker 3: I'm going to be living with this for the rest.
Speaker 2: Of my life likely and what does that look like
Speaker 2: on a day to day basis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so after the initial relapse, I did a really
Speaker 3: aggressive chemotherapy again and then just managed it twelve weekly
Speaker 3: scans and blood tests every fourth three to four weeks
Speaker 3: and making sure. I guess I'm one of the lucky
Speaker 3: ones that my cancer is really responsive and my blood
Speaker 3: will show if something's wrong, so we'll be able to
Speaker 3: act on that. But yeah, now at the moment, I'm
Speaker 3: back in chemotherapy, which I said I never would do again.
Speaker 3: But it's just oral, just oral chemotherapy, so I'm able
Speaker 3: to not be in the hospital, so I'm able to
Speaker 3: be at home. I don't hear the beeping sound, so
Speaker 3: I've got really bad PTSD from beeping sounds because one
Speaker 3: of the ways you can do chemotherapy is with a
Speaker 3: pump that hangs around your neck for forty eight hours.
Speaker 3: So I can be home, not in the hospital. But
Speaker 3: that gives me PTSD and it just sends me into
Speaker 3: a spiral, and I get side effects that aren't even
Speaker 3: from the chemotherapy that are presenting because I'm so traumatized
Speaker 3: from having chemotherapy. Yes, so now I do two week
Speaker 3: blocks of oral chemotherapy. I'm in a week off at
Speaker 3: the moment, and then I'll start again on one day
Speaker 3: and do another two weeks of that chemo for the
Speaker 3: next six months.
Speaker 2: And you you're on this because you've relapsed, Is that right?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And how what does that look like? The relapse is it?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 2: Is it an extension or is the chemo treating it?
Speaker 2: And then it's coming back? What does that look like?
Speaker 3: Yeah? So I stopped chemotherapy for a little bit. There
Speaker 3: was looking at alternate stuff and doing different trials like
Speaker 3: clinical trials and stuff. But I got pneumonia not long ago,
Speaker 3: forget all the time, but it just wouldn't go away.
Speaker 3: So I went I had a scan and it was
Speaker 3: the three I've got three mets, or had three mets
Speaker 3: in my lung and they had grown by a really
Speaker 3: really small margin. But any growth in my cancer is
Speaker 3: quite aggressive and needs to I guess be addressed straight
Speaker 3: away because it's not the original tumor, so's it grows
Speaker 3: really really quickly, and we don't want it to obviously
Speaker 3: spread from the lung where it is. That's the only
Speaker 3: place that is now. So now I'm doing chemotherapy until December,
Speaker 3: so then I can have a surgery to remove what's left.
Speaker 2: And again, if I know this probably a tough question, Kelly,
Speaker 2: and you know, again excuse me ignorance, but if you
Speaker 2: didn't go back on chemo, what would that look like
Speaker 2: as in time wise, because you said it's aggressive, would
Speaker 2: it be would it be months? Would it be years?
Speaker 3: My original relapse, they gave me my option was palliative care,
Speaker 3: which is about three months, and that was two years
Speaker 3: ago nearly.
Speaker 2: How do you cope with that in your head? Do
Speaker 2: you just block that out and you just focus on
Speaker 2: what needs to be done? You just take it day
Speaker 2: by day, you know, treatment by treatment? How do you
Speaker 2: run your life in your head?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Well, I try not to take it day by
Speaker 3: day only because I don't want my life to be
Speaker 3: defined by the disease. Like I know that it's a
Speaker 3: huge portion of who I am, and I have to
Speaker 3: be near my doctors I need to be close to
Speaker 3: a hospital whatever it may be. But I also want
Speaker 3: I really like pride myself in thriving with cancer. I
Speaker 3: do everything that I possibly can. I'm still working, I'm
Speaker 3: still advocating for this disease that i'm quite literally being
Speaker 3: treated for. I am still parenting really quite well. I'm
Speaker 3: doing all the things that a normal parent would do
Speaker 3: for the most part. And I feel like if I
Speaker 3: lived each day or day by day, then I'm doing
Speaker 3: it a disservice, like I'm not. I really, I guess
Speaker 3: want to make sure that I'm alive for a reason,
Speaker 3: like I don't want. If I'm alive, I might as
Speaker 3: well live. I'm living on borrowed time. I need to
Speaker 3: make the most of it.
Speaker 2: Early detection. What are the signs and symptoms of early
Speaker 2: detection of bow cancer?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so obviously, bloody Napoo's a big red flag and
Speaker 3: not one that should be passed on ever, even some
Speaker 3: new toilet paper. Just go get it checked out. It
Speaker 3: doesn't mean it's going to be cancer. But blood is
Speaker 3: a red flag. It's red for a reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But then also, like abdominal pains, change in bower habits
Speaker 3: that last more than two weeks, unexplained weight loss, unexplained tiredness.
Speaker 3: If any of these happen, which they can happen so easily,
Speaker 3: but they if they last I get persist, that's probably
Speaker 3: where you need to look into it more. If it's
Speaker 3: persisting more than that two weeks.
Speaker 2: And you've you've taken to social media to to to
Speaker 2: give back uptimately to help raise awareness for this. How's
Speaker 2: your social media campaign going?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah, No. The feedback that I get is just incredible,
Speaker 3: Like the amount of lives I save, And that sounds
Speaker 3: so cocky, but the amount of lives that I've saved
Speaker 3: through simply talking about my own life is just incredible.
Speaker 3: Like the amount of people that I've gone to get
Speaker 3: a colonoscopy found poll ups being diagnosed at stage one.
Speaker 3: One of my daughter's dance friends parents literally went and
Speaker 3: got checked and she has stage three bal cancer. Like
Speaker 3: the fact that me just talking is saving lives or
Speaker 3: making people I guess second guess whether they're being taken
Speaker 3: seriously or pushing and advocating for themselves saving their own lives.
Speaker 3: It's just it really is so incredible. Like it took
Speaker 3: me a really long time to realize I guess the
Speaker 3: impact that I'm able to have, but soon I did.
Speaker 3: I've just gone full throttle and doing as much as
Speaker 3: I possibly can while also trying to like nurture and
Speaker 3: save my own life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly focus on yourself or that's very selfish of you.
Speaker 2: And what does a check up look like?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I guess it's different for everyone, but your
Speaker 3: GPS there for a reason. And I know it can
Speaker 3: be really intimidating to go see a doctor, especially when
Speaker 3: they are symptoms of being a female generally. But they
Speaker 3: talk about shit every day like that. That's the uncomfortable
Speaker 3: part about this disease. But it doesn't discriminate either, which
Speaker 3: is really frustrating because it doesn't care if you're a
Speaker 3: young twenty five year old woman that doesn't want to
Speaker 3: talk about whoo, he doesn't care. But yeah, I guess
Speaker 3: seeing a GPS the easiest part. But then the colonoscopy
Speaker 3: is where you usually get put after that, and that
Speaker 3: is their prep is shocking. But then you have a
Speaker 3: nice little sleep and wake up to sandwiches like it's
Speaker 3: really is a really easy procedure to be having.
Speaker 2: And where where are you at right now in your life?
Speaker 2: Where's your your mindset, where's your vision? Where's Kelly at
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, just getting through another about of treatment at
Speaker 3: the moment. But my daughter actually turned three today, so
Speaker 3: that's a huge milestone that we've been able to hear.
Speaker 2: Wow, congratulations birthday, little one.
Speaker 3: And started Kindy and started KINDI, which means that's something
Speaker 3: called my bucket list that I never thought i'd be
Speaker 3: well when I was diagnosed, didn't think i'd be here
Speaker 3: to see and I got taken to a first day
Speaker 3: of KINDI, which was humane.
Speaker 2: I love that you've got the positive mindset like that.
Speaker 2: That's phenomenal. I love that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now it's just trying to live life as normal
Speaker 3: as possible, like still planning holidays, still booking weddings and
Speaker 3: all those things that I still want to see my
Speaker 3: friends do good and like, yeah, just trying to live
Speaker 3: as normal as possible while also knowing that my life's
Speaker 3: really not normal.
Speaker 2: Kelly, Thank you ever so much for sharing your story.
Speaker 2: Your mindset is phenomenal. I love the way that you
Speaker 2: have this positive outlooking life and cracking on the way
Speaker 2: you do it is hugely inspirational. And this podcast alone
Speaker 2: will continue to save lives. So Thank you so much, Kelly,
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me on. Kelly is
Speaker 2: an ambassador for the Jodie Lee Foundation. To find out
Speaker 2: more about bow cancer screening and early detection, head to
Speaker 2: Trust your Gut dot org dot au. Thank you so
Speaker 2: much for joining me on Headgame. If you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 2: make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any of
Speaker 2: our incredible stories and leave me a review wherever you're listening,
Speaker 2: I'm Att Middleton. Catch you again next time.