I was healthy and fit — cancer never even crossed my mind
MY CANCER symptoms were easy to explain away at first. I started needing to pass urine every 30 minutes, and had cramping pains in my abdomen, and bloating.
But as I was only 32, I assumed they were minor problems — I’d always been healthy, hardly ever needed to see a doctor and it was rare for me to take a sick day off work. Cancer definitely didn’t cross my mind.
But after about six weeks, I contacted my GP for a phone consultation, in January 2022 — still thinking it was nothing serious. They said it was a urinary tract infection (UTI) and I was prescribed antibiotics.
My symptoms went away. But then I became constipated — I had another GP phone consultation a week later and was prescribed laxatives.
I had the cramping pains even when it was wasn’t my period. And then I started to feel really tired — I play football on Saturdays but after a game I’d come home and crash, sleeping up to 18 hours as I was so exhausted.
Over the following weeks I continued to feel unwell and had a gut feeling that something was very wrong. One day, I pressed on my tummy and felt a hard mass, the size of a tennis ball, just below my belly button.
Worried, I had another phone consultation with my GP and told her about the lump, pelvic pain, tiredness and bloating — and she said I should come in for a facetoface consultation. After examining me, she referred me for an ultrasound scan.
I had the scan six weeks later. They called me the day after, saying I needed an internal scan, a transvaginal ultrasound — under the fast-track referral scheme. That’s when I realised that they were investigating me for cancer. It was a total shock; I thought I was too young for it to be cancer, and I was fit and healthy, eating a good diet.
The scan revealed I had a cyst the size of a pomegranate on my right ovary [the ovary itself is the size of an almond]. They couldn’t tell if it was cancerous, so I had a Ca125 blood test, which checks for ovarian cancer markers. My reading was off the scale, at 1,788 [the normal range is between 0 and 35].
The doctors recommended surgery to remove the cyst, but also warned I might need more extensive surgery while under anaesthetic depending on what they found — such as removing the ovary, if there was a possibility the cancer had spread.
I went away to Italy on holiday while I waited for surgery and noticed how exhausted I was, even when I was doing nothing. I was also so bloated I couldn’t get my trousers done up.
Going into surgery not knowing what was going to happen was the most distressing time. The worst part was I’d always imagined having children and I didn’t know if this was going to be possible now.
When I woke up after the twoand-a-half-hour operation, they broke the news that it was ovarian cancer — they’d removed the cyst and the right ovary, as well as 50 lymph nodes, my appendix and the omentum [a layer of fatty tissue that covers organs in the abdomen].
Everything they removed was tested for cancer and it was an anxious couple of weeks waiting for the results. But I was lucky in that everything was clear, and I didn’t need more treatment. The cancer in the cyst was stage 1A — very early, another relief.
Since the surgery, I’ve been having scans every three months and regular Ca125 tests.
Last July, a scan revealed a cyst on my left ovary, but a scan later showed it wasn’t suspicious.
I now have to see a fertility specialist and get my eggs frozen so I can have IVF in future.
My doctors said my cancer was down to bad luck, but I also have to have genetic testing to see if I have the faulty BRCA 1 or 2 genes which raise your risk of breast cancer as well as ovarian cancer, so there’s lots to think about.
My advice to younger women is to trust your instinct if you have persistent symptoms — yes, it’s more likely to be a less serious problem, but younger people do get cancer. And the earlier it’s treated, the better.