Behind The Wish: Kieran McLeod

Life is pretty good for me in 2024. And it’s a trajectory that was pretty much started by my own wish when I was younger.

I have changed my degree at university from engineering to school teaching and science.

And on the side, I’m still doing comedy shows. I’m also running a radio show on 4ZZZ community radio, I’m doing some shows for high schools talking about my experience with cancer and coming out the other side positively. I am also doing a lot of fitness stuff, trying to keep myself well and healthy.

I’m doing more comedy now, there’s been an upswing there. For a while I was running my own rooms – booking talent and being the emcee – but that business side of it burnt me out.

Picture: Kieran on the mic at Radio 4ZZZ.

My health journey started in 2014. I woke up one morning with a really bad headache and it continued for the week. My mum, who is a pharmacist, said ‘let’s get you an MRI’.

It found a mid-brain mass, a glioma, that was causing hydrocephalus (excess fluid on the brain).

So, I had one surgery to drain the fluid. I’ve still got the scar hidden under my hair.

My condition was stable until 2017, when I was in Year 11. I started to have double vision, which I later found out was because of the tumour growing and pressing on nerves to the eye.

After MRIs we found the tumour had been growing consistently.

It was December 13, 2017 when we were scheduled for biopsy surgery and the surgeon came in and explained the full risks of that surgery. I would likely lose all my short-term memory, and I would have motor control issues and other issues so we cancelled that and began chemo and radiation therapy.

It was also that morning the radiation oncologist told me that I had, with treatment, five years to live and that the tumour was now a Stage 4 tumour.

At that moment I saw my dad cry – the first time I had ever seen him cry – and my mum was just silent. We just went all right well five years is better than two years so we will do the treatment.

Mum, dad, and the whole family rallied around me and researched to see how we could get the best possible outcome.

I was never angry at the world. From memory, I think that moment sticks out because I wasn’t able to make light of the situation. It was the reactions of everyone around me, to try and bring me out of that dark hole, that kept me going.

I always found laughing more efficient than crying. By making fun of the disease, I was staying in control.

Up until that moment when I was told I had five years left, I had been making jokes consistently to friends and family and doctors about the situation. I would say ‘it’s only a brain tumour’.

I had a joke with my physics teacher in year 11 and I was talking about Year 12. I was on chemotherapy at the time and he knew about my habit of joking around so talking about Year 12 he said ‘that’s cute, you think you’ll live that long’. I lost my mind laughing. It was a horrible thing to say but I thought it was hilarious.

That was now seven years ago. He was wrong. Mercifully, because after doing the radiation and chemotherapy the tumour had got a massive cyst on top so we had to then reach out to some surgeons that we had heard of.

We tried a surgeon in Sydney who said he can’t help us but this guy can. So we emailed Dr Mike Dexter and he said ‘yep, come on down’.

And the exact words he said to us in his office in the Westmead Hospital was ‘Yeah I reckon I can get all that’. That exact moment was beautiful because we had always been told it was inoperable. So, he went into the back of my head and took out the whole tumour. It was a better outcome.

Since that moment I have been in remission with no re-growths.

The medical procedures were hard: I knew the surgeries were going to be hard and painful but that’s something you can prepare yourself for.

What I didn’t expect was being 16 years old, as I was at the time, when I was told I had five years to live. No other 16-year-old around me – except for a few – were able to cope with that.

I lost a lot of friendships in that year.

Just because I was so sick. I gained some new friendships but there was one friend in particular who I was quite close with and she ended up completely cutting me off.

And later I got back in touch with her and she said ‘I loved you too much I couldn’t stand to watch you die’ and I thought it’s interesting in that moment you see those people who apparently love you to the point of not wanting to watch you die versus the people who actually care about you and stand by your side in the hope that you won’t die.

I have always had really great parents and siblings throughout my whole life but seeing how hard they fought for me and how much care they took of me, I will always owe them an incredible amount of gratitude for how much they have encouraged me to make jokes and be funny.

They could see that humour was the thing that was keeping me going.

Having funny parents growing up helped me in turning to comedy. I grew up watching classic Australian comedy.

I remember in primary school people saying ‘you should do comedy, you’re very funny’ and I was like ‘no I don’t want to be on stage, I don’t want to be in front of people’.

I was making jokes and doing dumb stuff all through high school but I had never been on stage all my life.

When I was approved for a wish from Make-A-Wish and they said ‘what do you want to do’ and I thought back to all the years of watching stand-up comedy on TV and loving making people laugh, and I thought I don’t want to get on stage and do stand up comedy. But I figured it can’t be any worse than cancer.

Make-A-Wish contacted me and asked ‘who are some of your favourite comedians you would like to meet’ so I had a good think about that and sent through a list.

Make-A-Wish organised a phone call with comedian Sammy J and that was just magic. Sammy’s such a cool dude. We had a good chat, talking about my journey, and then he started giving me some pointers.

And I mentioned, kind of off-hand, if he had a spot on his radio show in Melbourne, I’d be up for it. He texted me the next morning and said ‘yep do you want to come on the radio show while you’re down in Melbourne’.

We had a big Wish Reveal party which was at an Open Mic night at Brisbane and that had all the Make-A-Wish balloons and colours everywhere. Mum, dad, and my family were there. That was my first public show.

It went really good. First time doing it in public, apart from a tiny school talent show. It gave me confidence to do it in Melbourne and not chicken out at the last minute.

So while I was in Melbourne for the wish, I was on ABC Radio with Sammy J. I also got to meet the Venezuelan comedian Ivan Aristeguieta. He is magic too, and such a lovely man. He was able to give me some pointers for my set. He said he quite liked my jokes.

Picture: Kieran with Sammy J at the ABC Studios.

So for the actual wish I got to go on stage at RAW Comedy in Melbourne – and crush it! Absolutely smash it. I think the first thing I said on stage was a jab at (veteran comedian) Denise Scott for leaving the microphone too low.

When you have spent so much time and effort in hospital trying to shrink your head, it’s quite bad when it grows that much that quickly *laughs*.

It still, to this day, remains the greatest experience of my life. Having that many people and that much genuine talent in the room – proper comedians saying ‘that was very funny’ - just sparked the love of performing in me and four years later, I’m still doing stand up and trying to chase that high again.

Picture: Kieran, on the night of his wish, with the Make-A-Wish Wish Team.

I don’t think I would have started comedy without Make-A-Wish – not until maybe I was in my mid-30s. I would just be studying engineering and preparing to work in an office all my life.

The wish has changed my life. I think about the person I was a few years ago, prior to the wish, and now I’m just like a wildly different person. It’s changed my life for the better.

The wish helped me make that first step to get on a stage.

I like to say I have the opposite of what social anxiety is. Almost to a fault, I am not socially anxious, just to get a laugh or make someone smile.

It’s definitely improved my confidence and my general outlook on life. The wish gave me something to look forward to and I think it’s weirdly still doing that to this day.

I think I have done about 50 or 60 stand-up shows. I also host trivia three nights a week.

And I have done bigger venues in Brisbane and the Gold Coast.

I don’t get stage fright at all anymore. Hosting trivia in Logan and doing stand-up comedy in front of 12 angry concreters in Ipswich are probably the best experiences I could have and prepared me for what I want to do, which is high school teaching.

All I used to know was brain cancer, so that’s all I would talk about on stage – kind of ‘tumour humour’ - but I have branched out and do a lot of optimism and silly stuff. I have done some songs, I have done a bit of everything.

There’s been a few gaps like when uni gets too much. I just want to keep getting bigger and better. I would love to do a tour, do bigger shows and make money from doing it. But for now, I am working on a high school show – and performing for a while – would like to do that on a bigger level. I would like to tell people life can be hard but there’s still joy to be found.

I discovered during my journey with cancer that radiation does give you a super power – and that’s to get a Make-A-Wish.

I just wanted to come back to Make-A-Wish because it helped me make a massive life change and inspired me in so many different ways. I also love working with kids and want to help others have a good experience just like I had.

I have had some really big wish experiences. And some smaller ones.

One of my favourite wishes was for a young girl who wanted to be a VIP at SeaWorld. For the wish they needed a bodyguard who would step out and usher her out of her limo. So that was the role I played (see picture). That was a magical experience, it was so cool to be a part of.

To see her on the day and knowing her situation, you could just tell that nothing else mattered in that moment. I was so happy to be part of it and to see her joy first-hand.

I like to think my experiences as a Wish kid help me relate to other Wish kids and their families.

I like to mention, sometimes in the first meeting, that I have done this myself and I think it helps them. It lets them know they can get through it and have a good time, and that the wish will have a positive impact.

Make-A-Wish has had a tremendous impact on me. As a volunteer its been amazing to give back to other kids but on the whole, Make-A-Wish has completely 180-ed my life trajectory which has been amazing.

Volunteering for Make-A-Wish is one of those things that is forever in the back of your mind, you’re thinking about what all these kids are going through and that they can’t do this and can’t do that.

It's such a beautiful thing to be a part of and it has helped me be a bit more organised as a person to try and stay on top of things.