Here are some things you will lose:

• Your breasts – yes, you will have a double mastectomy. You will miss them but it will save your life.
• Your hair – it grows back, trust me
• Your independence – you have to rely on others to do the simplest tasks when you get really sick.

Here are some things you will gain:

• An understanding how to live for now but not fear tomorrow.
• A love of life and family.
• A strong sense of self that lets you look in the mirror on your darkest days and still see hope.

You will also meet some of the most awe-inspiring people who will pull you through the pain and the treatments – which sometimes can feel worse than the cancer.

And – this is the really important bit, Kylie – you will come to understand what is essential to survive. You will see that you are still here now because of science. Because there are people out there, men and women who feel your pain and will use their brilliant, inquisitive minds to focus on breast cancer research. To find ways of making it more bearable, more treatable and within a decade, to commit that no woman anywhere will die from it. Nowhere! And that’s something to hang on to.

When you are my age, medical research will have upended breast cancer so that survival rates for most breast cancer increase to over 91%. This is because, in your lifetime, medical researchers will make life-saving improvements in early detection and treatments.

Cancer will be cruel to you Kylie but you will see that the world is filled with kindness. Every day you will pass by people in the street or coffee shop who put their own money into backing research. You may not know it at the time, but they’re doing it for you and it’ll help save your life.

I want you to remember that I am here now writing this to you because of medical research. Because my belief is stronger than my body. Because I saw chemo and radiation not as unbearable pain but as the treatments that will save my life. 

I am so excited for what medical research will do next for me (in fact I am counting on it) and for the young women like you who deserve a future that is golden. Please do everything you can to support it along the way.

I’m not out of the woods and this COVID-19 pandemic (That situation should be for another time) has made it all the more challenging.  But I am still going to my appointments and I am still training to walk for the Perkins and WA women’s cancer research in September. I’m determined to be well enough to start and (hopefully) finish and do my bit to cancer research too. I’m not a researcher (I wish) but I can help fund one.

So, younger Kylie. There are tough times ahead. There is sadness and terrible pain. You will feel weak, nauseous and every part of you will ache. But it will pass. You will have better care than is available to you now, thanks to research. And my hope for ‘us’ in the future is that we will be cancer free – thanks to science, faith and hope.

Enjoy the now and know that I’ve got the future covered for you.