Everyone that gets diagnosed needs a hope story

Tayla was a normal 21-year-old, working and studying to be a nurse, when she found a lump on her back. Her GP thought it was most likely a broken rib slightly out of place and gave Tayla a referral for a CT scan. She didn’t go at first because it didn’t seem alarming, until her mum had a gut instinct that something was wrong.

As Tayla got into her car after the CT scan, her doctor called and told her she needed to come in immediately.

“I bawled my eyes out the whole way to the GP because I knew in my gut something wasn’t right,” Tayla said.

“It all happened really quickly after that,” Tayla continued. “The next day was filled with CT scans, PET scans, and MRIs.”

Tayla was sent to Melbourne from her home in Tasmania for more information and a diagnosis. Four months after her initial GP appointment, she was diagnosed with Ewing sarcoma in her rib, involving both the bone and the surrounding soft tissue.

She considers herself “really fortunate” because her tumour was slow-moving and localised, which gave her enough time to undergo a two-week cycle of IVF to retrieve her eggs.

After landing back home in Launceston following her first chemotherapy session in Melbourne, Tayla was told, “You can’t go home.” The global pandemic had locked down the country, and in doing so, had shut out Tayla’s support system.

“All the doctors and nurses would visit me like they were treating someone with a special disease,” she said.

Tayla went through six rounds of chemotherapy. Each round required five days as an inpatient, which gradually reduced to two. She then returned to Melbourne for surgery to have her tumour, along with three ribs, resected.

This period would have been traumatic for anyone, but spending nine days in hospital after her surgery at the height of the COVID-19 crisis in Melbourne was “terrifying.”

“It was confronting, and it made me feel really small—like I had lost all control,” she said.

“I’m going to die,” Tayla thought. “And my family is all the way in Tasmania.”

After surgery, Tayla needed eight more rounds of chemotherapy, each one making her increasingly sick. She had fewer good days at the end of each cycle before the next one began.

Tayla finished chemotherapy on 20 December 2020 and celebrated with the team on the ward with tears, cuddles, and cake. In January 2021, doctors found no evidence of disease, and in September 2025, Tayla was finally discharged after many clear scans.

During one of her follow-up scans, Tayla’s doctor discovered a rib that had recently cracked in two places. Tayla had slipped and fallen during a hike but never went to a doctor or hospital to get it checked.

“I couldn’t really recognise what really bad pain was. I was just so used to significant pain,” Tayla said.

Tayla wants to share her story in the hope that it helps others diagnosed with sarcoma—and to show that there are success stories out there.

“You can survive. You can have life afterwards. And what happens isn’t the whole of you. It’s just a part of your chapter and a part of your life.”