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<\/p>\nIt\u2019s the birthday Kaela Graham-Bowman was told she would never live to see.<\/p>\n
But for this newly turned 35-year-old, this celebration couldn\u2019t be sweeter.<\/p>\n
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Afghanistan veteran and mother of two Kaela Graham-Bowman was diagnosed with the rarest of rare types of cancer, Sinovial Sarcoma at the young age of 28 years old.\u00a060 Minutes<\/p>\n
For the past six years, this Afghanistan veteran has been locked in the battle of her life.<\/p>\n
But this time, the enemy isn\u2019t the Taliban – it\u2019s an aggressive, internal threat called synovial sarcoma.<\/p>\n
The rare, lethal soft-tissue cancer ruthlessly targets adolescents and young adults.<\/p>\n
When Kaela was diagnosed, she had never heard of it.<\/p>\n
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Kaela had already recorded goodbye messages to her children when she discovered a revolutionary new therapy for Sinovial Sarcoma in the United States.\u00a060 Minutes<\/p>\n
Sarcoma is so rare it\u2019s often called \u201cthe forgotten cancer\u201d.<\/p>\n
In nearly four decades, the high mortality rate hasn\u2019t budged.<\/p>\n
But now there\u2019s a glimmer of hope.<\/p>\n
A revolutionary new therapy developed in the US is offering patients, who have been told their condition is terminal, with the most precious gift of all: time.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s exactly what Kaela desperately wants and needs.<\/p>\n
It is the chance to defy the odds and spend more time with the ones she loves, her husband Alex and children Violet and Aston.<\/p>\n
When she was given the opportunity to be the first Australian patient to undergo the treatment, despite how sick she already was, she didn\u2019t need to be asked twice.<\/p>\n
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Kaela is the first Australian to undergo Tecelra, a cutting-edge immunotherapy that has shown a 40% success rate among Sinovial Sarcoma patients.\u00a060 Minutes<\/p>\n
You don\u2019t have to spend much time with Kaela to understand just how determined and resilient she is.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou gotta be, you don\u2019t have a choice,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a quality that she\u2019s needed since receiving the worst news in 2020.<\/p>\n
Back then she was living her best life.<\/p>\n
She was out of the army, happily watching her young family grow and building a career as an oncology nurse.<\/p>\n
But in a cruel twist, the caregiver was about to become the patient.<\/p>\n
\u201cI started getting pain in my right thigh and I thought it was an army injury initially, just arthritis or something,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
![\"Kaela](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/ca85d146a977d0af97a34e8a0f5c90e52912210eea3be16183a11b542414c1bd.png\")
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Kaela was able to fund her US$2 million treatment through the Federal Government\u2019s Medical Treatment Overseas Program, overseen by Health Minister Mark Butler.\u00a060 Minutes<\/p>\n
\u201cI went to my GP, being the nurse I am, told him what was wrong with me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cHe tended to agree and said, \u2018Let\u2019s just send you for an ultrasound though\u2019. And yeah, I saw the look on their faces and everything changed in a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n
She soon discovered the dull ache wasn\u2019t a sports injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was put in for surgery the following week, which was meant to be a biopsy, but I woke up with drains hanging out of me in ICU,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey had to take the tumour out then and there because they said if they left it in there, I\u2019d be dead.\u201d<\/p>\n
The surgery saved her life at the time, but it would be just the beginning of an exhausting onslaught of chemotherapy and radiation.<\/p>\n
Despite battling her own illness, the dedicated nurse kept caring for others.<\/p>\n
![\"Kaela](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/fb0a3f8b30aabc5b6ddca0d8ebee1634db8a692627f332001276a913829264e0.jpeg\")
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Kaela received news from her doctors that her body has responded well to the treatment.\u00a060 Minutes<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it gave me fight, my job gives me purpose and I strongly believe that once you lose that purpose, you lose the fight,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it was really important to me and it was important to me to show the kids that, you know, mum\u2019s OK, she\u2019s still going.\u201d<\/p>\n
For a while, the threat seemed to recede.<\/p>\n
Each checkup showed a steady, promising turn for the better.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought I was cancer-free. I had a new lease on life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not until you\u2019re in that position that the grass is actually greener.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cLike the sky is so blue, and you don\u2019t take it for granted.\u201d<\/p>\n
But Kaela was about to experience just how cruel and merciless this cancer could be.<\/p>\n
Believing she was on the brink of remission in 2022 she filmed herself accessing her latest scan result.<\/p>\n
The reality was a devastating blow.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat scan showed that the cancer had spread to both of my lungs,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like my life was over.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew how bad that was and how dark it was going to get.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dr Vivek Bhadri is a leading oncologist at Sydney\u2019s Chris O\u2019Brien Lifehouse.<\/p>\n
A specialist in sarcoma, he has seen how unforgiving this disease is, especially once it metastasises as it had in Kaela\u2019s case.<\/p>\n
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Thanks to the revolutionary immunotherapy, Kaela gets to celebrate a milestone birthday surrounded by her loved ones.\u00a060 Minutes<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you look at statistics for patients with synovial sarcoma whose cancer is spread to the lungs, you would expect most people to survive maximum one to two years after that time,\u201d Bhadri said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think she knew that the chances of long-term survival for her were very low.\u201d<\/p>\n
By late 2025, Kaela had exhausted every treatment option available in Australia and began palliative care.<\/p>\n
Bhadri prepared his patient for the inevitable.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo what\u2019s important for you in whatever time you have left,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But this former soldier had one final shot at survival.<\/p>\n