Sipping Champagne on a Paris hotel room balcony, admiring the sparkling Eiffel Tower at night, Auckland woman Hayley Killalea looked like any carefree young traveller. But despite being on her dream holiday, which also included a visit to the US and Canada with her closest girlfriends, a devastating reality still lingered.
The 29-year-old former nanny was ticking off her bucket list after receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis.
“One of the highlights of my trip was visiting New York,” she recalls.
“We spent the week laughing and eating, got matching apple tattoos and went to the musical Hamilton on Broadway. Having those experiences felt really special, especially with all my friends.
I thought, ‘This might be the last time I see you.’”
The symptom that changed everything
Hayley was just 24 when she noticed her left thigh looked slightly larger than her right. When she began getting pins and needles each time she crossed her legs, the then-manager at a legal tech company visited her GP, who discovered a 5cm soft-tissue mass in her thigh.
Doctors immediately sent her for X-rays, ultrasounds and a biopsy, which confirmed she had myxoid liposarcoma a rare soft-tissue tumour that’s often painless and develops in the fat cells.
“Sarcomas make up only 1% of adult cancers,” explains Hayley.
“They can be silent and there’s no screening for this cancer, so your best chance of survival is early detection.”
Treatment, surgery and hope
Following her shock diagnosis in April 2021, Hayley began 25 rounds of radiation to shrink the tumour, before having surgery in August 2021 to remove it and save her leg. In remission for almost two years, she continued to have regular check-ups. Then in June 2023, she felt a lump on her buttock, which turned out to be metastatic liposarcoma.
A full-body MRI picked up three spots of cancer in her liver and in July of that same year, Hayley endured 18 rounds of radiation on her buttock before the tumour was removed through surgery. By November 2023, a liver CT scan proved clear.
When the news changed
Sadly, just a month later, another scan revealed the cancer had returned to her liver and lymph nodes, and doctors told Hayley it was no longer curable, offering palliative chemotherapy to extend her time.
“I cried because I’d always known it was possible, but it’s different being told,” she says.
“I negotiated delaying the treatment for a couple of months, so I could travel with people I love while I still looked and felt like myself.”
Flying to Singapore to stay with her brother and his family, Hayley then returned home for a scan, before flying business class to Bali, courtesy of her pals.
Plans cut short
On her way back to New Zealand, Hayley received a call from her oncologist. The tumours were growing faster than anticipated and she was told the two months she’d planned to travel before starting chemo again would be too long a delay.
Reshuffling her plans, she cut her dream trip down to a month, jumped on a plane headed to Paris, then popped over to Denver in the US to stay with her old boss.
“I also went to Los Angeles to see another brother and did a tour at Disneyland, before going to Coachella in Southern California,” she shares.
“I really wanted to see Doja Cat live and she was headlining the event.”
Afterwards, Hayley visited Canada, where she’d lived and worked from 2018 to 2020.
A moment of calm before treatment
“There’s a beautiful, huge, Swedish-style outdoor day spa there called Nordik,” she explains.
“I wanted to go for three days after Coachella and put myself in rehab! My friends and I had the best time laughing, drinking and just relaxing. Being in a warm spa while it was snowy and cold was amazing.”
She returned home in May 2024, shaved her head and prepared for intensive chemo.
Letting go of her hair
“I didn’t realise how attached to my hair my identity was and for the first time, I looked like a cancer patient,” confesses Hayley, who splashed out on a blue and white head scarf by luxury designer Hermès.
While enduring a gruelling six rounds of chemo, she soldiered through with support from her family and friends, sharing parts of her journey on TikTok to encourage others to check for lumps and bumps. A popular video that has received more than 500,000 views saw Hayley share her “death rules”. Among them was a suggestion to have her ashes made into diamonds, so her loved ones can carry a “fabulous” piece of her with them always.
Setting the rules, her way
Another was that funeral guests must sign up for free counselling through the Cancer Society.
“Also, only approved photos can be posted of me once I die,” she wrote.
“No awkward teenage-years photos!”
Living in the now
Today, Hayley is continuing to receive chemo privately, which costs around $8700 per cycle as the drug Trabectedin that she’s on isn’t funded.
“I had an MRI and CT a couple of weeks ago, which showed all the tumours are still stable, so I’ve agreed to do another three rounds of chemo,” tells Hayley.
“Then we’ll rescan and go from there.”
Making memories between treatments
Along with her jam-packed one-month adventure, Hayley has also flown to Fiji for a girls’ trip, revisited Bali for her sister’s 30th and watched Taylor Swift live in Canada. Earlier this year, she adopted a long-haired miniature dachshund named Maple, who accompanies Hayley to her oncology appointments.
“Maple has endless amounts of love to give and helps me maintain a consistent routine,” she reveals.
“She does moult a lot – anyone would think she’s the one going through chemo! She loves food and her favourite thing is being in bed, which is perfect for my lifestyle.”
Finding peace at home
Hayley’s latest project is working on a backyard garden to create a peaceful summer hangout space, filled with flowers, herbs and vegetables.
“I’m mostly asymptomatic and if you look at me, you probably wouldn’t even know I have cancer,” says Hayley, who celebrated her birthday in Queenstown in August.
“You’d just think I chose an edgy, short pixie cut. “I’m still bewildered this is my reality, but I’m really grateful for all my experiences with the people I love. I’ve had the best time.”
