Kellie Finlayson, an author and influencer battling stage four bowel cancer, has disclosed her decision to forgo a traditional funeral, expressing a desire for her loved ones to celebrate her life rather than mourn her passing. Having lived with terminal cancer for five years, Finlayson stated that her affairs are in order and her wishes have been communicated to her family and friends.
Finlayson, 30, has surpassed her initial prognosis by approximately three years and continues to undergo rigorous treatment, which includes chemotherapy every three weeks and daily medication. Earlier in June, she underwent a lung resection after the cancer metastasized to her lungs in late 2022. She provided an update on Instagram following the surgery, thanking supporters and noting that the procedure went well.
Her daughter, Sophia, serves as her primary motivation for continuing to fight. Finlayson described Sophia as the reason she has persevered, stating that the prospect of her daughter wanting to play motivates her to get out of bed on difficult days. "You can't exactly say no to this perfect little human being saying, 'Mummy, I want to play,'" Finlayson said.
She considers herself fortunate because her treatment remains effective. "I'm pretty good at it," she remarked about chemotherapy. "Which is a weird thing to say, but I guess lucky that treatment works for me. So I have three-weekly infusions and then I have chemo tablets daily, morning and night."
Finlayson also revealed that she opted against the advice of her first oncologist following a relapse in early 2023, believing that a different approach offered her a better chance at living. "And if I had listened to my first oncologist, literally, if I'd listened to everything he'd said, I'd be dead by now, which is crazy," she stated. "I would have been in palliative care like three years ago."
She subsequently sought a second opinion and later married Jeremy Finlayson, a former Port Adelaide player, in a small ceremony. The couple had initially postponed their wedding after the cancer spread. They also faced the difficulty of seven unsuccessful IVF embryo transfers in their attempt to give Sophia a sibling. "We actually had seven failed transfers, so it was a really tough 16 months," Finlayson said. "Obviously things didn't work, but that's fine ... it ended up costing me more mentally than it was worth."
Finlayson makes a conscious effort to separate conversations about her illness from her home life, emphasizing that home is for living and the hospital is for medical discussions. She prefers to speak about a "living list" rather than a bucket list. Her current focus is on utilizing her experience to encourage younger Australians to be attentive to their health and seek medical advice when something feels amiss. "I just want to be in front of rooms of people that haven't heard me speak before so that they take themselves a little bit more seriously and that's kind of the aim this year," she said.