Riding bareback on a horse, skydiving, and flying in a fighter jet are some of the activities Alisi Jack-Kaufusi (pictured) never thought she’d be able to do. Six years ago the HR administrator was given the ‘soul crushing news’ she had stage three ovarian cancer after scans found two tumors the size of grapefruits on each ovary. Despite the best efforts of doctors, the diagnosis is terminal and physicians can’t confirm exactly how much time she has left.
Now Alisi, originally from New Zealand but who lives in Brisbane, has devised a ‘timeless list’ consisting of everything she wants to do while she can. Before her diagnosis, Alisi, now 30, experienced bloating in her lower abdomen area, she was tired ‘all the time’ and her menstrual cycle was ‘irregular.’
But she dismissed the symptoms because she assumed she was ‘too young for any serious health concerns.’ During a visit to see a GP in October 2017, she mentioned she had been experiencing bleeding for about a month and the blood was clotted and dark. After getting multiple blood tests, MRI and a CT scan, she was booked in for a biopsy after the doctor noticed ‘something blocking’ her ovaries.
Alisi’s world came crashing down in December 2017 after being told she had ovarian cancer at 24, given the average age of women diagnosed with the disease is 64.
‘Once I heard of ovarian cancer, I looked at mum and froze. It felt like the room
went silent and all I could see was the doctor’s mouth moving.
It was all just a blur.
I just remember saying to the doctor: “No, this can’t be because I am only 24, you have
the wrong person,”‘ Alisi recalled. ‘Being told by the medical team that I got this disease
30 years early was hard to process and still is. When you think of cancer, you think old.’
By the time she was diagnosed, the cancer had spread outside her ovaries.
‘I had to have a full hysterectomy and unfortunately, they were unable to save any eggs.
In your 20s, the last thing you think of is having to come to terms with not being able to have your own biological children. I felt robbed,’ she said. ‘It feels like all my wishes and goals squeezed into a smaller time frame.
I might not die tomorrow, but I may not live long enough to have long-term plans.’
Also, Alisi has devised a ‘timeless list’ of 72 activities and travel plans – from seeing the Northern Lights to getting her teeth whitened and going on a safari tour in South Africa.
Alisi Jack-Kaufusi has been diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer and,
inspiringly, has created a bucket list so she can make the most of the time
she has left. Photos / GoFundMe / Instagram
‘Riding down the beach on a horse was so therapeutic, and flying in the fighter jet was
so thrilling – I felt so free and could forget about everything for half an hour,’ she said. Alisi wants to travel to Tonga to swim with whales, as this is where her family is from,
and go bungee jumping in New Zealand. While she’s made a start on the list, she’s also unsure if she’ll have enough time to complete it.
‘The one regret I have is not going to the doctor sooner to get my symptoms checked –
I put it off for about three months,’ she said. ‘The doctors were great, but I really put off making an appointment. And I had never heard of ovarian cancer before my diagnosis. Alisi at age 20 before diagnosis. ‘I was so shocked, upset and scared of what the future looked like for me.’ Thankfully she’d had the support of her family throughout the entire ordeal. Want more stories like this from the Daily Mail? Visit our profile page here
Alisi Jack-Kaufusi, originally from New Zealand but now living in Brisbane, was diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer aged only 24, and has bravely battled the disease for the last five years with many surgeries and rounds of chemotherapy.
She has now been given the news that it is terminal, so she’s started a GoFundMe page
to help raise money so she can tick things off her bucket list. Alisi wants to do everything from skydiving to seeing the northern lights.
The fundraising page has already raised over $16,000. The young woman shares updates on her page of all the things she’s ticked off with the financial help. She’s already been on a helicopter ride over Brisbane and travelled in an old-school Mustang. Alisi has also shared how hard it was to narrow her list down.
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She’s started a GoFundMe page to help raise money so she can tick things off her bucket list. Photo / Instagram
“To be super honest, it was quite hard to list down the things … I really wanted to do, because one day I’ll say, ‘Okay, I want to do this’, and then the next I’m like, ‘Hmm, no, maybe not’, then I go into a frenzy of ‘Oh my God, what do I want to do?’,” she said.
“I think it was the pressure that I was putting on myself to write down a list, but now
I’m just going to go with the flow.” Recently she admitted on Instagram while she loves
crossing things off the list, it isn’t easy when she’s also undergoing treatment.
“It’s been a little tricky to tick some of the items off of my list because of chemotherapy.
Having to live my life in three-week increments because of chemo and always having to reply ‘let’s see how I feel’ can be frustrating,” she explained. In the meantime, Alisi continues to bravely share her story – the good, the bad and the utterly awful.
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Alisi Jack-Kaufusi is bravely sharing all the things she wants to do before she dies. Photo / Instagram
Her Instagram account is peppered with the stuff you’d expect to see from a young woman, like swimsuit photos and cute snaps with friends; she also uses her platform to share in detail her battle with cancer. The young woman shares the intimate parts of the ongoing battle, from what it’s like to start chemo again – “I get anxious and feel depressed” – to the toll of sharing her story so candidly.
“The last couple of weeks have been hard mentally,” she recently wrote on Instagram.
The reason she shares her story is because she wants to raise awareness. “Sharing my
lived experience never gets easier, but I’m doing this for the women who are currently in the same situation as I am. “Also for the women who are no longer here to use their voice and for our future generation of women.
This is for our mothers, our sisters, and our daughters,” she wrote on social media.
Alisi’s work is so important because there are still no recommended screening tests
for ovarian cancer for women who do not have symptoms and are not at high risk of developing ovarian cancer. Dying woman, 30, shares heartbreaking bucket list as
she vows to enjoy her final days – World News – Mirror Online
Alisi Jack-Kaufusi: Love in the time of cancer – YouTube
‘This isn’t about me’: Three-time cancer battler’s mission to save
While battling ovarian cancer for the third time in four years, Alisi Jack Kaufusi is on a mission to educate others and help prevent them from going through the battle she continues to face. Alisi Jack-Kaufusi was just 24 when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She wants to warn other women – particularly other Pasifika women – of the symptoms of the disease to help them avoid a similar fate.
A young Tongan woman lost half her large intestine, a chunk of her diaphragm and her fertility to a cancer she had never heard of. Alisi Jack-Kaufusi was 24 when she was diagnosed with a rare mix of two ovarian cancers in 2017, requiring a full hysterectomy and 6 months of chemotherapy.
The Auckland-born woman is sharing her story to raise the profile of a disease which kills more Kiwi women than melanoma, but she says remains shrouded in stigma and secrecy. In 2017, Jack-Kaufusi was living with her best friend in the heart of Brisbane, had just been promoted, and had “the world at her feet”.
Living a busy life as a flight attendant, she had ignored symptoms of fatigue, pelvic pain and bloating, until a month of irregular vaginal bleeding prompted her to see a doctor.
She was referred for further tests, and an ultrasound showed her ovaries were completely obscured by two large cysts. A biopsy later confirmed she had cancer. “I just shut down…
I thought they had the wrong person.”
Alisi Jack-Kaufusi pictured in hospital with her father, Tevita Kaufusi.
There are multiple types of ovarian cancer with similar symptoms, but different prognoses. Most are caught late when treatment options are limited, making survival rates “extremely poor”. Two-thirds of women have high-grade serous ovarian cancer. By contrast, only 2-5 per cent – typically younger women – have low-grade serous cancer, which is often resistant to treatment.
Jack-Kaufusi had both.
Alisi Jack-Kaufisi spent a month in hospital after having a full hysterectomy,
Half of her large bowel and part of her diaphragm were removed due to ovarian cancer. She had to learn to walk and breathe normally again. She was referred to a fertility clinic
to see if her eggs could be saved, but told it was impossible. Three weeks later she was in surgery.
Doctors didn’t realize the extent of the cancer until she was on the table.
“It was like someone had sprinkled salt and pepper through my body, there were little tumors everywhere”. Over eight hours, surgeons removed her cervix, uterus, fallopian tubes, ovaries, and half her large bowel. After undergoing six grueling months of chemotherapy in 2018, Jack-Kaufusi is in her second year of remission.
About a year after surgery, the weight of losing her fertility hit home when her sister had
a baby. She realised: “Wow, I’m never going to experience what it’s like to be pregnant, to carry my own baby”. Jack-Kaufusi – adopted by extended family members – said all six of her sisters offered to have a baby for her.
Alisi Jack-Kaufusi (centre, front) with her parents, brother, sisters, and best
friend who all shaved their heads when she was going through treatment.
One even named their daughter Alisi in her honour, which she said helped her get through the feeling of loss.Now 27, she is working in reception for the same airline and studying business part-time. Ongoing bowel issues meant she could no longer fly.Jack-Kaufusi had not heard of ovarian cancer before her diagnosis, something she wanted to change – particularly among the Pasifika community.
Ovarian cancer is one of five gynaecological cancers, and the most deadly. It largely goes unnoticed until it has advanced, as its symptoms are often conflated with less serious conditions. These include abdominal bloating, indigestion, changes in appetite, frequent urination, changes in bowel habits and constipation and fatigue.
Alisi Jack-Kaufusi has joined New Zealand organization Cure Our Ovarian Cancer – the only research charity in the world dedicated to the often incurable form of ovarian cancer – to inform people about the disease.
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