After beating cancer, 19-year-old enrolls in nursing school to help kids battling illness

When Jade Finley was 9, she would’ve done anything to get out of school.

She often feigned illness, hoping the school nurse would send her home. That’s why, when she heard her brother, Tanner, tell their mom he had a sore throat and would go to the doctor instead of school that day, she said she, too, felt sick.

In the way mothers often do, Susan Finley knew Jade was fibbing to get out of class, but let her tag along anyway. When they got to Urgent Care, her brother was deemed fine. Then, it was Jade’s turn to see the nurse. 

“Then she looked at me,” Jade said. “She was feeling my neck for swollen lymph nodes. She kind of paused, and was like, ‘have you never noticed this lump right here?’ It was just a mass on the side of my neck, and we were like, ‘no, we’ve never noticed that.’”

The lump in the side of Jade’s neck was soon diagnosed as metastatic papillary thyroid cancer. The cancer had spread from the 9-year-old’s thyroid to her lymph nodes and into her lungs, scattering between 50 and 100 tiny tumors throughout her upper body.

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But that was almost 10 years ago. 

Jade, now 19 years old, has since gone through surgery and radioactive iodine treatment, and successfully sent the cancer into remission within a few months of her diagnosis. Now, she is a freshman at Marian University, where she studies nursing in hopes of one day working as an operating nurse at Peyton Manning Children's Hospital at Ascension St. Vincent, where she spent so much time as a fourth grader.

“We always say I’d like to give back to maybe another 9-year-old girl who’s faking a sore throat,” Jade said. “I have the experience to understand what other patients are going through.”

After the diagnosis

Jade had her thyroidectomy shortly after that day at Urgent Care in 2011, and started radioactive iodine treatment, which killed off most of the small tumors in her lungs, soon after. She will likely never be fully cancer free, but medications and consistent check ups keep it subdued. 

Chris Miyamoto, Jade's surgeon, said he's seen her every few months for ultrasounds and check-ups since her surgery. While Jade has never had a recurrence, Miyamoto said they'll need to remain wary of it. 

“I’ll probably have cancer for the rest of my life, at least in my lungs," Jade said. "But they’ve been dormant for so long that at this point they just keep an eye on it and it’ll probably just be with me for the rest of my life." 

Going through a childhood cancer diagnosis, Miyamoto said, can be particularly traumatic. 

"She did well," he said, "but certainly it’s kind of altering to go through a big surgery and then treatment after that."

The treatment has left Jade with asthma, a partially paralyzed vocal cord and a 12-inch scar that wraps from her throat to her left ear, though it’s since been dulled by cosmetic surgeries and has become a source of pride. According to her mom and her doctor, it also left her with a heightened sense of compassion and empathy that will aid her in the medical field.  

“Jade has just really developed this deep compassion and sensitivity for other people,” said her mother, Susan Finley. “Whether they are battling an illness or going through a hard time or being bullied, she just has really shown a desire to be supportive to other people who are dealing with challenges –– physically or emotionally.”

“She has a bounce in her step and a smile that lights up the room,” she added. “I believe someone who is battling an illness is going to feel at peace when Jade walks in.”

Giving back

In 2012, the year after her treatment, Jade volunteered at a gala to fundraise for Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital, and was later named one of the hospital’s True Hero Ambassadors. 

Jade joined the Girl Scouts in first grade, and continued through her diagnosis and into high school. During her senior year, she received her Girl Scout Gold Award, an honor given to young women who address issues that drive change in their communities.

Her project was aptly titled Just a Dose of Encouragement, or JADE, and was aimed at helping teenagers through their cancer treatments. 

“Those are selfless things to do, and certainly take a lot of extra energy for children and then teenagers to do on top of normal activities, schooling and sports,” Miyamoto said. “You might think someone would be exhausted from going through all this, but she was ready to continue to give back.”

For her project, she sewed 50 fleece pillowcases and filled them with activities to keep older kids preoccupied while staying at Peyton Manning Children’s Hospital. She delivered them to the hospital last spring, where they were passed out to patients. The kits included card games, adult coloring books, socks, nail polish and fidget spinners, among other things.

“I think she’s an excellent person, really high-energy and caring, as evidenced by her service projects she’s done, giving back to kids and helping them feel better here in the hospital,” Miyamoto said. “Having been a patient requiring major surgery and medical therapy gives one some empathy and understanding that would definitely benefit her and make her more aware of things than most people her age.”

Throughout high school, Jade played for her school’s volleyball team, and managed the men’s volleyball team. She sang in three different choirs. 

Now, on top of five online classes and one in-person class, she’s in a show choir at Marian, serves as a manager for the university’s volleyball team, and is a San Domiano scholar, a distinction that tacks on a pastoral leadership minor to her nursing degree. 

She doesn’t remember specifically when she decided she wanted to be a nurse, but knows that her history with cancer played an outsized role in the decision. 

“Since I’ve developed a compassion for people like me, that definitely plays a big part in why I want to be a nurse,” Jade said. “Not only am I super interested in the human body and think surgeries are so cool, but I definitely think I have a story and a past that I can use to relate to other patients that I may deal with as a nurse.”

“That’s my dream,” she continued. “I’d love to work in the (operating room) at Saint Vincent's. That’s my dream.”

Contact Pulliam Fellow Jordan Erb at jerb@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter: @jordanparkererb.