Miracles do happen!
To highlight Ovarian Cancer Awareness Month, proud mum and gran Claire Griffin tells her family’s story
If Claire Griffin needs any reminder to count her blessings, she only has to glance across at her first grandchild Ned.
As the blonde-haired little boy toddles happily round her farmhouse kitchen, it’s impossible to forget that, by rights, he shouldn’t be here. Or at least not yet…
For not long before Ned’s conception, it had looked as if his mum – Claire’s only daughter Anna (31) – might not be here herself following an ovarian cancer ordeal.
“I’ve always tried to be a really positive person and look for positive slants on things. It’s what I’ve always taught the children,” admits retired head teacher Claire (60) from Harrogate, North Yorkshire.
But that natural optimism abandoned her when Anna phoned one day, out of the blue and sobbing, to say she’d just been told by her GP that an increasingly obvious bulge in her torso could actually be a cancerous ovarian cyst. “My legs literally buckled beneath me,” she recalls. “I was walking home from school when I took the call and I didn’t know whether I was going to faint or be sick. Luckily there was a bench nearby and I managed to sit down. Then I had to get up and tell her dad.”
Fortunately, Claire’s husband John (60), renowned in the family for being good in a crisis, immediately drove them from their then home in Lancashire, to Leeds, where Anna, a primary school teacher, lives with her partner
Rupert (33).Over the following days and weeks they spent every spare moment there, supporting Anna as she underwent emergency scans, blood tests and, eventually, a major operation at St James’s University Hospital, Leeds, to remove a whopping 23lb cyst along with her left ovary and fallopian tube to save her life.
“Looking back, Anna had been putting on weight round her middle for some time – which was odd as she’d always eaten healthily and been a slim size eight and sporty. Her degree was in dance; she was a runner and a regular at the gym. It sounds silly now but because the weight gain was so gradual,
I thought it must just be her natural adult body shape. It was only after someone at the gym wrongly assumed she was pregnant that Anna went to see her GP. After seeing her after the operation, almost two stone lighter, it struck me how little she really was,” recalls Claire.
Four weeks later, at an appointment with the consultant who’d carried out the op, both Claire and Anna rejoiced in the news that the cyst had been a low-grade ovarian cancer and had been removed intact. No further treatment was necessary.
“Normal family life could then resume,” adds Claire who also has sons, Tom (34) and Joe (32 ).
With her family’s and Rupert’s loving care, Anna battled back to full health in time for another scan six months later to check her remaining ovary.
Then came another blow. The scan detected that another cyst, albeit a much smaller one, was on her remaining ovary. As things stood, with only one ovary, she was already heading for an early menopause.
“If she hadn’t been able to have children I would have been devastated for her,” says Claire. “I always thought she and Rupert would make me a grandma, after saving for a house deposit and establishing their careers.”
The unwelcome news prompted them to change plans and try for a family of their own sooner than later. Within weeks, they had a happy announcement. “I woke up to a 6am text showing a picture of a pregnancy test and the words ‘I’m pregnant!’ laughs Claire, who was at the baby’s birth with Rupert.
When Ned was born, Claire was there waiting for her first cuddle. “It was a real privilege to share that moment,” she recalls. I am sure the birth of any grandchild is special but because of what Anna had been through there was definitely an extra bit of sparkle to it.”
Fortunately the cyst on Anna’s second ovary disappeared. Claire and John have moved closer
“I woke up to a 6am text showing a picture of a pregnancy test and the words ‘I’m pregnant!’”
to Anna to look after Ned two days a week, and are eagerly awaiting the arrival of Anna’s second child this summer.
“Without all this trauma, Ned wouldn’t even be here and yet there he is – as large as life with another baby brother or sister on the way. All this has made me extremely grateful. I’m very lucky. I count my blessings!”
So does Anna, who adds: “When you think you might die and then you don’t, it puts everything into perspective. You realise the value of everything – especially family. Mum’s been with me every step of the way and a great support through everything.”