KELLIE FINLAYSON - 'SOPHIA HAS KEPT ME GOING❜

After being diagnosed with late-stage bowel cancer, the young mum is enjoying a good life

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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.