AFL star marries amid cancer battle
AFL star Jeremy Finlayson and his partner Kellie Gardner have tied the knot in an intimate ceremony.
The Port Adelaide player and his now wife, both 27, exchanged vows in South Australia's Tennyson Beach on Sunday with only 21 close friends and family in attendance.
Kellie shared a photo of the beaming newlyweds showing off their rings on Instagram with the caption, "THE FINLAYSONS", as well wishes for the couple flooded in.
Jeremy and Kellie's wedding was a long time coming, as the couple originally planned to marry in October 2022, but had to postpone their nuptials after Kellie underwent chemotherapy, radiation treatment and surgeries for a devastating cancer diagnosis.
Gardner was diagnosed with bowel cancer two years ago, just three months after their daughter Sophia was born in August 2021.
However, in January came the awful news the cancer had spread to her lungs after the mum-of-one felt a tightening in her chest.
After ruling out COVID-19 as the reason for the pain, it was discovered a mass "a bit bigger than a tennis ball" was discovered in her chest cavity.
In February, Gardner told Mark Soderstrom's The Soda Room podcast she experienced a series of stomach problems ahead of her diagnosis and wishes she got a medical check-up sooner.
"If I had got all of my tummy problems checked and not just been thinking I had a lactose intolerance like every other Joe, Dick and Harry these days. If I had got it checked…" she said on the podcast.
"You hear cancer and you attach it to a 60-year-old. You don't attach it to a 25-year-old who is quite healthy, who runs marathons and who just had a baby."
"I was a fit, young mum. You just don't attach it to that."
Jeremy and Kellie are planning a more extravagant wedding bash for October this year once the AFL season is over, with Gardner hoping to have kicked cancer for good by then.
Image credits: Instagram