‘MR WHIPPY’

February.

“By this time, even walking was a struggle and I had difficulty breathing,” she says.

“I’ll never forget the look of shock on his face when the consultant examined me. He said I had a large ovarian mass and the only option was surgery. He couldn’t say what it was exactly, or how big. He warned me there might be more than one and they could be attached to other organs.

“Agreeing to the surgery, I felt like I was signing my life away. Until they opened me up, no one knew what they would find.”

As Keely waited four weeks for

surgery, her stomach swelled another 5in. She finally went under the knife at Swansea’s Singleton Hospital in March last year. What she hoped would be a routine hour-long op ran for five hours as her surgeon removed a cyst weighing 26kg – or 4st 1lb.

With newborns averaging 7lb 7oz, Keely’s benign cyst weighed the same as septuplets.

She said: “I remember still being groggy from the anaesthetic as they wheeled me back to the ward and excited hospital staff were shoving photos in front of me.

“I didn’t understand why until I came round and everyone was treating me like a minor celebrity. They explained how big this cyst was and showed me pictures – I couldn’t believe I’d been walking around carrying this medical alien.

“It looked like a massive pile of ice cream so I called it Mr Whippy!”

Keely has a 30cm scar from her sternum to her pelvis but was back on her feet soon after the op.

She says: “I was sore but walking around felt amazing!”

Keely lost her right ovary in the surgery but medics say her odds of becoming a mum are unaffected.

In the meantime, she is getting used to one unwanted side-effect of pregnancy all new mums dread.

“At 28 and even though I’ve never been pregnant, I’ve been left with stretch marks,” she says.