When she first got together with Port Adelaide AFL player Jeremy Finlayson, Kellie Gardner – now Finlayson – assumed the spotlight would always be on him.
The idea of him kicking a winning goal then commentators asking about his wife seemed unlikely. But that’s now their reality.
Since 2021, the nation has followed Kellie’s journey after she opened up about her stage-four bowel cancer diagnosis, for which there is no cure. Her role, she jokily dubs, as “poster girl for poo” is one she now firmly embraces and gives purpose and meaning to a “shitty situation”.
“It was a selfish decision at first,” Kellie, 29, tells Woman’s Day. “I had lots of friends and family reaching out and it kept reminding me I was sick. It was the barrier to getting on with life.”
LOVED ONES
As a result, Kellie decided to start posting her journey on Instagram for her small following of loved ones to read.
Of course, it wasn’t long before the media got wind of her illness and it developed from there.
“I wasn’t leaning into it for a year there. I was too unwell,” Kellie says, explaining that things began to change thanks to her stoma nurse.
“She was a huge part in making that happen.”
The nurse set her up with another young woman who’d been recently diagnosed and Kellie saw the effect of passing on her lived experience.
With bowel cancer now one of Australia’s most common cancers, with 15,500 diagnosed here each year, there were many people she could touch.
“The feedback was that I really helped and it made me think if people could follow along with me they might get the same benefit,” Kellie says. “If I’d known life could get better when I was first diagnosed it would have been a huge incentive.”
STAYING POSITIVE
And life is good for Kellie right now, something she’s keen for her 69,000 followers to know. She’s recently undergone surgery on her lung after the cancer spread in 2022 but is now on a stable treatment plan including daily oral chemotherapy.
Her daughter Sophia, who was just three months old when she was diagnosed, is now three and the absolute light of Kellie’s life.
“If I didn’t have her I wouldn’t be here now,” she says. “My family and friends have lived without me before but I couldn’t put her through it.
“She doesn’t know any different,” Kellie continues, explaining she and Jeremy haven’t had to lay out what’s going on to their little girl.
“She still treats me like me. To her, I’m more than just the disease. I don’t know what the future is but no one knows what life holds and, in that way, I’m lucky. I have three-monthly scans and a great team.”
It means for Kellie, her terminal diagnosis hasn’t led to creating a long bucket list to tick off.
“I’ve always been a believer that every day is a blessing, and nothing’s changed,” she says. “There are no expensive holidays or grand plans – if I could spend every day with Sophia that’s all I need and I’ll take other opportunities when they’re presented.”
One such opportunity is the book she’s just penned, There Must Be More. Touchingly, she dedicates the book to herself in the early days of diagnosis.
STRONG HEAD
It also lays bare Kellie’s struggle with infertility, as well as her and Jeremy’s heartbreaking attempts with a surrogate, which ultimately failed. She also speaks openly about when she reached rock bottom with the treatment.
“I had to have some hard conversations with friends and family in the lead-up to its release as there was a lot people didn’t know,” Kellie says. “I talk about the days I didn’t want to wake up and a time I asked nurses to turn off the machines.
“There are emotions in there Jeremy didn’t even know I had. It was a very naked feeling when it was released, but it’s also the best thing I’ve ever done. People can understand where I’ve been.”
Kellie says she’s protected her parents by pushing through, never crying or asking for help.
“In return, they don’t bring their emotions to me. I think we’ve all outsourced our own techniques,” she says. “I’ve only seen Jeremy cry twice in the last four years. I don’t know how [my parents] have got through it but we’re all still here.”
One of Kellie’s main coping mechanisms is never to let herself feel defined by cancer.
“Cancer has never overcome me, it’s such a small percentage of who I am,” she says. “I’ve always kept a sense of self and a strong head on my shoulders and I’m proud of that.”
Her message to anyone now is simply to trust your gut, “If you have bowel cancer symptoms, yes, get checked, but above all take yourself seriously. Cancer doesn’t discriminate – it can come at any age and if you don’t take yourself and your health seriously how can you expect a doctor to?”
There Must Be More: Finding Purpose In The Face Of The Unimaginable by Kellie Finlayson with Alley Pascoe is out now (Allen & Unwin, $34.99)
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