In September 2022, Hayley Morris was changing her four-month-old daughter’s nappy when she felt a “slight pull” in her back as she stood up.

The active mum of three brushed it off, thinking she had just pulled a muscle.

WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Hayley shines as husband Wayne shaves her head.

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But the next day, the pain in her lower back became “excruciating”.

For four months, the always-positive mum put up with it, trying to treat it at home by stretching and being active.

“I was eventually going to osteos (osteopaths) and trying physios to get exercise to strengthen my core or my back,” the 32-year-old tells 7Life.

“In the end, I was like, ‘I just can’t keep doing this, nothing is fixing anything, it’s actually getting worse’.”

The social worker made an appointment with a doctor.

But because she and her husband Wayne, 31, had just moved to the Victorian town of Lakes Entrance there was a four-week wait.

During this time, the mum to Banjo, four, Lottie, two, and baby Eden, by then 10 months old, discovered a lump in her breast.

She had also developed mastitis, an inflammation of breast tissue that sometimes involves an infection.

And her back pain was getting worse.

“I was at my wits end. I was in tears, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t pick up my daughter,” she says.

“I don’t know if I’ve injured my back or broken my back.”

Eventually, she saw the doctor, and was sent for an ultrasound and CT scan.

The ultrasound showed a cyst in Morris’ breast - but it was the CT result that was to change her life.

The day after undergoing the CT scan, Morris received a call from the doctor, asking her and her husband to come in.

“I was obviously very scared, because why are they asking for my husband to come with us?” Morris recalls.

The couple was told that lesions - an area of abnormal tissue, that may be benign or malignant - were found on her spine and liver.

“My doctor just straight out said, ‘You have cancer’,” she recalls.

Morris was in shock. Never in her wildest dreams did she think the back pain was cancerous lesions.

“We weren’t looking for cancer - it was purely this excruciating back pain,” she says of the reason for having sought medical advice.

“I was in tears. I didn’t know what to think.

“At the time I was 31 and I said, ‘I’m 31, I can’t have cancer, let’s fix this’.”

After another ultrasound of her breast and a full body CT scan, Morris was diagnosed with incurable Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer - which was the primary source for the lesions and back pain.

It was also discovered she had lesions on her “entire spine”, sternum and right shoulder.

There was no cure for Morris’ type of cancer.

But to slow down its progression, six rounds of chemotherapy are planned over six to seven months.

She will also be on immunotherapy drugs for the rest of her life.

So far, the treatment hasn’t gone as planned.

“Both of my chemo (treatments) have not been amazing,” she says.

“My first chemo I ended up in hospital for six days, because I had neutropenia which is where you literally have no white blood cells.

“So your fighting defence to kill any infection is not there.”

The mum became “very, very sick” and was put on antibiotics.

Her second round was just as challenging, after she had a severe allergic reaction to the immunotherapy drug.

“I was vomiting, I was sweating, I was tingling everywhere, my vision went - everything was blurry,” she recalls.

She was “pumped” with “all sorts of drugs to reverse the effects” of the reaction.

Morris and her doctors will now strive to find alternative treatments to help prolong her life.

The mum was told her prognosis was “around that two-year mark” which she says was “pretty confronting” given that her family is so young.

“We’ve got everything crossed that we (have) much more than that,” she says.

Morris and her family are now focusing on “the precious time” they have together, and she hopes to build “core memories” with her three children.

“Long-term isn’t the reality for us,” she says.

“I just want to make those memories and be as joyful and happy and really embrace all of the time with the kids.

“Everything I do is to make their life better and enrich their life.”

Following chemotherapy, Morris says her and her husband’s goal is to take the children on a road trip to Western Australia.

“I want them to experience all of the amazing things in life,” she says.

“Then one day when I’m not here, they have a little bit of me in them that they can then take and flourish and be the best person they can be.

“They absolutely mean everything to me.”

Morris was only five when her 42-year-old mum died from breast cancer.

Now, 10 years younger at 32, she’s going through her own battle.

She is warning everyone, especially those with breast cancer in their family, to get screened.

“If people do have a family history, go and get tested, talk to your doctors about (the) proactive steps to monitor yourself,” she says.

“If anything feels different in yourself or you think, ‘Well that doesn’t seem right’, talk to your doctor and get the assessments done.

“I may not be here forever, but if they can do those steps, that’s all I want.”

The mum adds that if she “hadn’t listened to my body” she could have been “even further down the track of this diagnosis”.

“And that would be even scarier to think of considering how progressed my diagnosis is (already),” she adds.

Morris and her husband are “unbelievably overwhelmed” after friends, family and strangers have taken to a GoFundMe set up for the mum.

Even their new community has come together to raise money and awareness for the family.

Wayne’s best friend is also putting his best foot forward, walking 680km across the Australian Alpine track - starting in early April.

“It’s just amazing the people we have around us and the people that we have to support us, it’s just crazy,” Morris says.

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