‘Brick-sized’ ovarian tumour found after months of misdiagnosis
Some days would be great, while others would be ‘‘utter hell’’, says a young woman whose ovarian cancer went misdiagnosed for 18 months.
Chloe Pointon was 19 when she began suffering from bloating, back pain, abdominal pain, excessive tiredness and constant peeing.
The symptoms kept getting ‘‘blown off as a urinary tract infection’’ by doctors, she said. ‘‘I went through 10 to 15 courses of antibiotics. This went on for over 18 months.’’
Pointon, based in Murchison, said she put the lethargy down to working long hours in her building apprenticeship but those around her could see there was more to her health issues. During a trip to Kaikōura, Pointon said a friend’s mother encouraged her to get checked out again.
‘‘She said: you are really sick, you need to go the doctors now.’’
The GP told her she had lost a baby, possibly eight months through the pregnancy, and she was sent for urgent scans, Pointon said. ‘‘Halfway through getting the scan done in Christchurch, they turned the screen off. The lady handed me some paper work and said you need to see the gynaecologist ... and you need to go now.’’ The specialist revealed she had possible cysts on her ovary requiring surgery and within 48 hours a ‘‘bricksized tumour’’ was removed from her left ovary, Pointon said.
‘‘And the doctor said: I am pretty sure you have got cancer.’’ It was dis
covered Pointon had a yolk sac tumour, a rare form of ovarian cancer.
The diagnosis came in January 2016 and by mid-April that year she had finished chemotherapy treatment.
Pointon said some of the chemotherapy drugs had left her with ongoing health issues, including reduced lung function, significantly impacted hearing requiring a hearing aid in one ear, and loss of sensation in both legs leaving Pointon unable to go back to work.
But she said she was ‘‘one of the lucky ones’’. ‘‘I thought I was never going to be able to have kids.’’
She has two healthy children, aged 2 and 4. ‘‘They have been a massive blessing in all this.’’
New Zealand charity Cure Our Ovarian Cancer founder Jane Ludemann said that while ovarian cancer was typically thought of as an older women’s disease, one in eight women diagnosed with the cancer were under 45. Pointon said: ‘‘I had all the symptoms that if I was 50 they would have gone, you’ve got ovarian cancer.’’
Her advice to others going through similar symptoms was ‘‘get it looked at’’.