'Super fit' Kaela thought she had a torn muscle. It was the first sign of the fight of her life

Kaela Graham-Bowman had been working as an oncology nurse in Canberra for years following a career in the military.

Nobody knows better than her the ravages cancer can wreak.

None of her patients knew she, too, was battling the deadly disease.

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Graham-Bowman, 34, began experiencing severe leg pain in 2020. At first, she thought she was suffering from a torn muscle.

"I was super fit at the time, going to the gym five days a week," Kaela tells 9honey.

The pain, which was in her right thigh and radiated down to her knee, would feel worse at night.

After weeks of pain, a lump popped up on the right side of her thigh near her groin.

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"I thought it was my torn muscle, and I went to my GP and asked for a cortisone injection," Graham-Bowman says.

Her doctor sent her for an ultrasound to "make sure" they were putting the injection in the right place when the discovery was made.

"The sonographer's face was literally shocked, and he said he just needed to get the doctor," she recalls.

"He ran out there. The doctor came back straight away and she said, 'We need to rule out sarcoma'.

"I was like, 'What is sarcoma?' I'd never heard of it, even working in oncology. She just said, 'It's cancer.'"

Sarcoma is the deadliest cancer in children and young adults, despite only accounting for 20 per cent of cancer diagnoses in this age group.

Funding for sarcoma research remains "critically low", according to the Australian and New Zealand Sarcoma Association (ANZSA).

July is Sarcoma Awareness Month, with the aim of raising much-needed funds for research into this rare and aggressive cancer.

"I don't think I understood the gravity, just because obviously cancer's awful, but then you get your rare cancers and your aggressive cancers, and sarcoma is one of those," Graham-Bowman explains.

"Usually by the time you find sarcoma, it's quite advanced because it does develop from that tissue deep within.

"So by the time you get your symptoms, it can often be quite late."

She was diagnosed with synovial sarcoma in 2020 and has been fighting it ever since.

When Graham-Bowman was first diagnosed, her children Aston and Violet were three and six.

When Violet asks her if she is going to die, the mum assures her she's "doing her best not to".

The first person Graham-Bowman called when she received her diagnosis was her husband Alex, followed by her dad, Clint Keogh.

"I was just hysterical," she says.

It wasn't until a full week after that initial ultrasound that Graham-Bowman had a PET scan that confirmed she was suffering from sarcoma.

"The following day I was booked in for a biopsy, but when I woke up, I had drains and tubes in my leg, everywhere," she recalls.

"Essentially when he went in to do the biopsy, they realised that it was almost wrapping my femoral artery, and if they didn't take it out then and now it was very likely I would not survive much longer."

Next, Graham-Bowman would begin chemotherapy.

She found comfort in the demands of family life.

"It's a bit of a silver lining that I have kids and work and I'd just try and crack on because if I'm in my head or alone, it can be a pretty dark place," she says.

Graham-Bowman's initial chemotherapy spanned three months, during which she suffered serious, adverse reactions including heart failure.

"I was very unwell, there were lots of hospital visits and then I had radiation five days a week for two months," she says.

"I couldn't work through the chemotherapy but I worked when I was getting radiation which was funny at times because I was working in oncology.

"I'd go down on my lunch break to get radiation."

The plan after surgery and chemotherapy was for Graham-Bowman to undergo scans every three months.

"On that last three-monthly scan, I had relapsed. The cancer had spread to my lungs," she says.

This time, she would undergo a "wedge resection", where doctors would take out the tumours, followed by more surgery including a thoracotomy.

"I recently relapsed again, and now I'm on a clinical trial."

A clinical trial is the only option left for Graham-Bowman, and she feels lucky to have been eligible for one.

She is now on a new immunotherapy and is hopeful it will prove effective.

"It's a little bit easier on me than the chemotherapy, which is something," she says.

"It's essentially an infusion every 21 days. So far the results from other sarcoma patients are looking really positive."

Along with the pain, suffering and fear endured by cancer patients, there is also the financial impact on her family.

"Luckily, the trials team does fund most of those expenses, but you are still always out of pocket for medications, food," she says.

"Then you've also got the other aspect, where my husband needs to take time off work, so then it's impacting him, it's impacting the kids.

"I've got to find someone to look after the kids if I'm not home or he has to be with me. So the roll-on effect is huge."

She is also experiencing extreme fatigue.

"A couple days a week I pretty much sleep all day," she says.

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"I just can't stay awake. But then I try and go to work when I can. It's so good for the kids to see some normality and just do normal mum things."

For those newly diagnosed with sarcoma, Graham-Bowman urges advocating for themselves.

"If something doesn't feel right, don't just take their word verbatim. Get a second opinion because it literally could save your life."

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