Despite her challenges, Ash believes she’s better for it
2025-06-03
For Ash Thomas, the gym has always been a place of solitude, a place to shut out all distractions.
But to even be able to walk into the building is something she doesn’t take for granted.
At the age of 12, Ash began training alongside her parents at her local gym in Port Macquarie. Some pain in her right knee, followed by significant weight loss, drew suspicion from her mum. An X-ray revealed those fears were justified.
Ash was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer, as well as a secondary cancer found in her lung.
It was the first time she saw her father cry.
“To be honest, I think because it was so traumatic, it's been wiped from my brain,” she recalls.
“I can't even say that I was really scared because I didn’t fully understand what was going on. I wasn't so young that I didn’t understand at all, but I wasn’t old enough to fully grasp how serious it was.”
Treatment followed in the form of ten knee operations and over 20 rounds of chemotherapy. There was a femur replacement in there too, operations which she still bears the scars of today.
The constant stop-start nature of treatment and the travelling, coupled with the immense physical and mental toll of operations and chemotherapy pushed Ash to her breaking point.
“There was a time when I thought I was about to finish treatment, but I was wrong. The oncologist came into the room and told me I had six or seven rounds of chemo left to do.
“I just broke down crying. I said, ‘Mum, I can’t. I don’t want to do this anymore.’ I remember the cleaner comforting me as well.
“I was so far away from home. I have a sister, and I just felt like I wanted to go home.
“I just wanted to be a normal kid, but I just couldn’t.”
Once chemotherapy and the operations concluded, rehabilitation came next. Ash’s next challenge was learning to walk again, a challenge she says is still ongoing.
“I had to get on the parallel bars and figure out how to walk again and I walk with a little bit of a limp still.
“I still have to practice walking patterns. I go on walks now with my AirPods in, listening to a timer so I can walk in the right pattern.”
Ash plans on pushing on with the pain as she takes on The Kids’ Cancer Project’s Better Challenge. Our official 2025 ambassador, she understands better than most the need to exercise, and for kids with cancer to be able to thrive post-treatment.
“Since I’ve gotten older and wiser, I realise there are so many children and families that go through what I have. To those who are thinking about signing up, understand that the money raised is going to a cause that is going to help so many.
“Three kilometres a day is going to be a challenge for me, but it’s definitely worth it. If I can, you can too!”
Today, Ash is in remission, back in the gym, and holds no fear describing herself as a normal teenager. She’s moved to Newcastle and began studying Biomedical Science, inspired by her experiences and the desire to help kids like her.
“It took me so long to realise that I have an opportunity to tell my story and help someone.
"There are kids who go through cancer when they're young and don’t survive. I’m lucky enough to have gone through it and to understand what I went through.
“If it weren’t for my journey, I wouldn’t have known anything about cancer. I didn’t even know the word osteosarcoma, but now I have so much knowledge about all kinds of kids’ cancers. Without what I went through, I wouldn’t work in a pharmacy. I probably wouldn’t be here studying biomedical science.
“So even though it was a really horrible thing that happened to me, I wouldn’t change what happened to me, because it’s made me who I am today.”
By signing up to The Kids’ Cancer Project’s Better Challenge, you're helping the 90 kids diagnosed with cancer each month by taking on 90km throughout September and raising vital funds to ensure better treatments, better outcomes and better cancer care.