Too Young For Cancer: Five Aussie women share heartbreaking stories of their painful health journeys

Meet five Aussie women told by their GPs they were “too young for cancer,” only to be diagnosed far too late with heartbreaking consequences.

These five women have one thing in common.

It’s not a shared hobby, goal or occupation as it should be for these loving mothers and ambitious career women with the world seemingly at their fingertips.

It’s that they were each told they were “too young for cancer” on a trip to the GP, with their health concerns dismissed only to result in late-stage diagnoses — or in some cases, a terminal prognosis — far from the option of early intervention.

This week, The Advertiser rolled out its Too Young for Cancer campaign, raising awareness of the rise of Aussies under 50 being diagnosed with cancer to encourage young people to advocate for their health and look out for symptoms.

It comes as medical professionals are sounding the alarm amid fresh data which predicts an impending epidemic of early-onset cancer, with fears health systems are not equipped to cope with the influx of patients.

GPs have issued impassioned pleas for government intervention, while urging young people to consult with doctors should they notice symptoms.

Here, five young Aussies facing cancer share their unique and heartbreaking stories … from a 27-year-old mum-of-one in palliative care to a 21-year-old who will live with the fear of a rare cancer returning for the rest of her days.

Young Aussies are being diagnosed with cancer in alarming numbers.

Tragic love story: Tayla Couzens, 29

At 23 years old, Tayla found a lump in her breast which doctors said was benign.

Weeks later, after intervention from her grandmother to push for a second opinion, new tests confirmed she actually had stage three breast cancer.

After a lumpectomy, lymph node removal and eventually a full mastectomy, she was given the all clear. But three years later, the cancer returned and had spread. She was terminal.

It didn’t stop her from searching for romance — connecting with husband Rhys on Hinge and tying the knot a year later, the young couple desperately in love from the moment they met.

Tayla and Rhys wed in November 2023. Picture: Supplied

On March 27, 2024, she lost her battle with cancer at just 29 years old.

In Rhys’ eulogy to his “real life Disney princess”, he said: “I’d do it all and more because being so completely and utterly in love with you was worth way more than this pain that I will now live with forever, will ever be, I can bear that for you. Loving you was the only option I ever considered.”

Terminal mum’s impossible choice: Milly Mitchell, 27

Milly knew something was off despite doctors insisting a cervical cancer diagnosis was not likely.

Taking matters into her own hands, she conducted a self-examination after suffering severe abdominal pains and extensive bleeding.

To her horror, she felt an eight centimetre tumour, prompting months of painful and uncomfortable treatments.

Sadly, shortly after her treatments came to an end, a pain in her back confirmed the worst. The cancer had returned, and it had spread.

Milly Mitchell, with son George, four, has been diagnosed with stage four cervical cancer. Picture: Dean Martin

“The doctor told me unfortunately, you have stage four cancer now and it’s called secondary cancer now and it’s most likely spread from the lymph nodes through the bloodstream and now it’s in my bones,” Milly told The Advertiser.

Not only has Milly — who is now in palliative care — had to navigate the difficult health battle at hand, the young mum has faced a conversation with her four-year-old son George no mother should endure: Whether or not to tell him mummy may not be around one day.

“It is too much for him to know at four years old,” she said.

‘Not for a second did I think cancer’: Emma Eckersley, 48

Lactation consultant and mother-of-two Emma Eckersley was cruelly stripped of her ability to breastfeed her second child Audrey after finding a lump in her breast, electing to have a double mastectomy.

At first, her doctor believed it was a symptom of her recent miscarriage, telling her there was no need for further testing.

Sure enough, the lump remained as she fell pregnant with her daughter the following year, and shortly after giving birth, Emma was diagnosed with stage four metastasised breast cancer.

“(The doctor) said she was really sorry to say but I’d definitely tested positive for breast cancer,” Emma said.

“I tried to convince myself that this was going to be an early stage breast cancer, that I’ll probably just have a lump removed, we would have caught it early enough and I will be able to just simply go on with my life.”

Emma Eckersley has stage four metastasised breast cancer. Picture: Dean Martin

Emma’s 11-year-old son Flynn is “very aware” of what is happening with his mum where three-year-old Audrey knows mum has cancer and her back gets sore.

For Emma, the possibility she may not be able to see her children grow is “the most devastating aspect” of the diagnosis.

‘I don’t want to know how serious it is’: Kathryn Simile, 49

For mum-of-two Kathryn, it was a change in bathroom habits that sent her off to the GP.

“I was finding it harder to work and stay on my feet so I went to the GP in January and she ordered a few tests and nothing came back alarming,” she said.

She even had an ultrasound that came back completely normal.

But intense pain at work had the midwife convinced something was not right, bursting into tears in front of a colleague who sent her off to another doctor. Her suspicions were confirmed “pretty much within a week”.

Kathryn Simile was 46 when she was diagnosed with advanced bowel cancer. Picture: RoyVPhotography

The mum lives with bowel cancer, stage unknown, and it has spread to her lungs.

She has opted not to find out how serious her diagnosis is, instead focusing on enjoying each moment.

“I say to my husband all the time ‘you could get hit by a bus tomorrow and die before me’ I don’t know what the future is. It’s irrelevant.”

‘I’ll be on the edge of my seat’: Sophia Noelle Thompson, 21

As a teen, Sophia was plagued with crippling headaches she put down to Year 12 stress.

The truth was far more sinister.

A shadow on an MRI undertaken to fix her deviated septum revealed the truth – with Sophia one of the million people in the world diagnosed with clival chordoma, a type of bone cancer found in the brain stem.

It is even rarer that she was diagnosed under the age of 21.

Sophia is one of the million people in the world diagnosed with clival chordoma. Picture: Dean Martin

Her tumour was removed in an eight-hour brain surgery through her nose, and while her latest tests have thankfully found no trace of it returning, she will never truly go into full “remission” as doctors know so little about the cancer.

This means it could come back at any point, leaving Sophia “on the edge of my seat for the rest of my life,” she told The Advertiser.

She continues to suffer with side effects of the radiation to this day, including nausea which she describes as “morning sickness without being pregnant”.

But she still tries to live her life like any other 21-year-old young woman, going out every Saturday night, sometimes with an eyepatch on to help her double vision.

“I’m surprised I could go out as much as I did … I was just very determined to hang out with my friends and just live normally.”

Originally published as Too Young For Cancer: Five Aussie women share heartbreaking stories of their painful health journeys