As Katie Keys approaches the two-year mark since being diagnosed with breast cancer, she says the journey has been “a truly sh*t time,” made more difficult by “the fact we don’t have facilities here”.
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Those who met the now 46-year-old Numurkah mum-of-four in their oncology ward travels might remember her as the bold, bubbly personality who was always “frocked up” on a Friday for chemo and dishing out treats to other patients with her ukelele-playing partner “Wayne-o” and best friend in tow.
“We were the loud, obnoxious crazy kids at chemo every Friday,” Katie said.
But staying “happy” and positive took effort.
“The way we saw it was that if we are going to do this every Friday, we’re going to make it a day out, because we are not focusing on the fact we are doing this because of the cancer,” Katie said.
“Because if we don’t laugh, we are going to cry and we had cried enough about it.”
Fit enough to hike 50km, with no ongoing health issues and regularly performing self-breast checks before her diagnosis, Katie had been single for quite some time when she met her current partner.
“We had only been going out for five or six weeks and he found the lump,” she said.
“Wayne and I now regularly joke about it — ‘let your partner feel your boobs’ — because you never know.”
Wayne nagged Katie to go to the doctor.
After a mammogram the following Monday, she had a call to present in Shepparton the next day where she was given the news that she had triple negative breast cancer, an aggressive form that is least responsive to chemotherapy.
Two multi-focal tumours, 8cm and 5cm, were sitting back to back in her right breast.
Later, when she managed to get in for a PET scan in Melbourne, the same breast “lit up like a Christmas tree”, indicating there were several more “waiting to pop”.
She was referred to a breast surgeon from Eastern Health who works at GV Health on select Fridays, but after her first visit in September 2024, she was told she’d have to wait until February for another appointment.
“I was like, what am I going to do, go home and sit on my ass?” she said.
“You just told me that I’ve got triple negative, the most aggressive breast cancer, but I can’t go and get scans? I just have to wait until February? No, thank you.”
She needed an MRI, but there wasn’t availability locally for months.
“Through a friend of a friend and a bottle of wine and a beg and a plead and tell my story, I got in through a cancellation and a cancellation, to have my MRI here in Shepparton,” Katie said.
“Then I had to go and have biopsies, ‘we can’t biopsy you for three or four months’; is this my life, are you joking? ‘Oh you’ve got cancer, but by the way, just chill for four months.’”
Her teaching colleagues at a Nathalia school phoned health services across Victoria, Tasmania and NSW to find a place for Katie’s tests to be performed quickly.
Finally, she got in at Eastern Health, which, between its Box Hill and Maroondah locations, became her home throughout her four ensuing surgeries to remove both her breasts and some lymph nodes.
But it wasn’t as simple as that.
Chemotherapy had done a number on her.
“My kidneys had shut down, my liver had shut down, my thyroid had packed it in, my heart was a mess,” Katie said.
“I went to Shepp, stayed for a week and a half, my surgery was postponed.
“I had to strengthen my heart, because I couldn’t endure time on the table, so we had to go with the option that meant least time on the table.”
Instead of having the double mastectomy she wanted, she could only have the right one off initially.
It was only this year she was able to have the second one removed.
In between, she needed two other minor surgeries and was also dealing with menopause that the chemotherapy had brought on, which affected her bone density, among other things.
She said many people stepped up to help her with her four boys, one who’s neurodivergent, and her pets.
“I have a lot of ‘framily’, I say, so friends that are like family,” Katie said.
Her friend Steph would look after her kids, while Wayne took her to Melbourne.
The school put on a concert and raised more than $5000 to help relieve some of the family’s financial pressure.
Oncology nurses from Shepparton who lived near her would drop off scripts and check on her at home.
Friends and family travelled from interstate.
“In the beginning it was overwhelming because I am the person who helps everyone else, does everything for everyone else, cooks meals, looks after kids, does all the things and all of a sudden we had groceries turning up on the doorstep and care packages, meals and all sorts of stuff,” Katie said.
“My mates put in a roster and another friend set up a fridge-freezer at her house ... when we needed it we could go there and restock.”
Katie said she was lucky she had a support network because the journey was hard no matter your circumstances.
“If you’re an old nan and pop at home and there’s only two of you, it’s got difficulties; if you’re like me, younger with kids and a family and responsibilities, it’s difficult,” she said.
“Either end of the spectrum, it’s not easy to just load yourself up and disappear.”
Even being just half an hour from Shepparton for chemotherapy made it trickier for Katie than if she’d lived locally.
Every third Friday, she’d have to spend six hours in Shepparton and every other one was around four hours.
She’d get liver, kidney and other tests done, only to be told she couldn’t always have the chemotherapy.
“Some days, the thought of getting back in the car to come home was too much, so we would go to Shepp Brewery or Belcibo or somewhere and they all got to know us, and we’d sit there as a collective for the afternoon,” Katie said.
“So we would have been lost if we’d had to go to Melbourne or to Bendigo or to somewhere else and then get in a car and have to drive two hours home, it would be sh*t.”
Despite test results determining whether her chemotherapy could be administered each time, Katie said “the girls” at GV Health’s oncology ward were ”angels”.
“It didn’t matter how you walked in there, you would come out with a smile on your face,” she said.
“I can’t imagine you’d get that kind of care or consideration in a bigger place; they literally knew everyone who came in, what their thing was, what they needed or didn’t need.”
Katie has looked at the map of Victoria and noticed how far away she’s located from many cancer services.
“We’re not close to anywhere, that’s what blows my mind — Albury, Bendigo, Melbourne — with Shepparton, we pull in from so far and we’re not closer to anywhere else,” she said.
“Us up this way, Numurkah, Nathalia, further than us, we’re going that way.
“Albury is miles away and, if we’re going to Bendigo, it’s even further. Shepparton is the hub for so much of this northern Victoria region.
“If you’re sick, where do you want to be? You want to be at home in your bed in your own house, especially if you’re feeling lousy.”
Katie and her entourage celebrated her last round of chemo on Valentine’s Day this year by taking two big buckets of roses and balloons into oncology.
“I made a big cake to share and we dressed up,” Katie said.
“I had a ball gown on and that’s how we went in and did treatment.”
The GV Health Foundation is calling on individuals, businesses and community groups to donate to its $5 million I Care for Cancer Care @ GV Health fundraising appeal to help bring first-class cancer care to the Goulburn Valley.
Donations can be made via the foundation’s website.
Community members interested in the various opportunities to contribute to and support the appeal can contact Amy De Paola via email at amy.depaola@gvhealth.org.au