Kellie Finlayson is not a cancer survivor she was diagnosed with Stage 4 colorectal cancer at age 25 in 2021 and she is still living with the disease three years on but she is a cancer thriver. This is her story, the brutal and beautiful reality of her life.
No one chooses to have cancer, no one chooses to go through a traumatic life changing experience, but the way I respond to it is the way I'd like to be remembered.
This isn't a book about cancer. It's a book about being dealt a devasting blow, being knocked down, and getting back up again. It's a book about living with a terminal diagnosis, and in spite of a terminal diagnosis. Kellie Finlayson is not a cancer survivor she was diagnosed with Stage 4 colorectal cancer at age 25 in 2021 and she is still living with the disease three years on but she is a cancer thriver.
The odds say Kellie shouldn't be here her cancer is aggressive and end-stage and yet, she is. Kellie is defiant. She always has been, just ask her mum, her close friends or her husband, Jeremy. "Dying is not an option," she says. You see, Kellie has too much to live for. Her daughter Sophia was just three-months old when she was diagnosed with cancer. It is Sophia who gets Kellie through the dark days, the hopeless moments and the harsh treatments. "My daughter is my purpose in life, and I will live all of my days for her," reveals Kellie, who also finds purpose in sharing her story and raising awareness about bowel cancer.
Bowel cancer is Australia's second most common cause of cancer-related death, and it is the leading cancer killer in 2545-year-olds. As a Jodi Lee Foundation ambassador and co-host of the Sh!t Talkers podcast, Kellie is determined to change those statistics. Her memoir, There Must Be More, is told from her unique position as someone living with cancer not someone who has "beaten" cancer, or a loved one left behind, someone in the thick of it.
Kellie is brutally honest and endearingly vulnerable in the pages of her book, which is at once heartbreaking, heartwarming and life affirming. She is so much more than "Jeremy Finlayson's terminally ill partner." Kellie is a force, a defier of odds, and an inspiration.
