Fiona, 33, thought her bloating and stomach cramps were normal digestion problems. She couldn't have been more wrong.
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Like many 20-something
women, I was suffering from IBS symptoms; I'd bloat, get an upset
stomach, and I had acid reflux. Unlike many young women, however, my IBS
symptoms turned out to be something a lot more severe: ovarian cancer.
When
I first started experiencing the IBS symptoms, I wasn't too concerned. I
went to the doctor, cut down on gluten, cut out wheat, eliminated dairy,
and tried lots of different things in an attempt to tackle it. But when
the frequency and intensity of the acid reflux and stomach cramps
increased, I couldn't help but worry there was something else going on.
It
felt like I'd swallowed bleach — my bloating became almost permanent
(even when I hadn't eaten), and there were certain foods that would just
go straight through me. So I went back to the doctors several times,
but for some reason, I trusted what they were saying to me. It was IBS.
[post_ads]I was given peppermint capsules and a medication called Buscopan and was advised to "de-stress" my life (as if that was so easy). But it was never even considered that the problem I was experiencing might gynecological and have nothing to do with my digestive system.
My periods were completely normal, so there was no reason for the
doctors — or me — to link it with that. I just thought I was unlucky to
have IBS.
But all of
that changed when I was 24. One day, I had really awful pain on the
righthand side of my lower abdomen, which was so excruciating that I
ended up on the floor. It soon passed and didn't return, but shortly
after I began a period that lasted for about a month.
I
had just began a job as a member of an airplane cabin crew, and I had
been warned it was quite common for bodily changes like that to occur
when you start flying long-haul. So even though my periods had been regular up until then, I still didn't consider that there might be anything seriously wrong with me.
I thought my rock-hard stomach muscles were abs from my personal training sessions.
Then
my stomach started to grow. I'd started personal training lessons, and
at first when I noticed that my stomach felt hard, I was super proud of
myself for the muscles I was developing. But once again, I was ignoring a
symptom.
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My stomach
got bigger and bigger until it was domed in shape, and when I'd ruled
out pregnancy, I went back to the doctors, who finally referred me for
an ultrasound. When I got there, the nurse was so concerned about what
she'd spotted that she told me to go straight to the emergency room. I
had a cyst attached to my ovary that, as it turned out, had grown to
nearly 6 inches by 4 inches, and it was filled with 4 liters of fluid.
It weighed 9 pounds.
The pain I experienced that day, I later found out, was the cyst having twisted my ovary so much that it had effectively killed it. The cyst had completely squashed the organ inside of me.
The bizarre thing was, when doctors performed the standard CA 125 blood test on me, which can help detect ovarian cancer,
my results came back normal. Apparently, that's not that uncommon with
the CA 125, though; it can give false results for many different
reasons, cancer-related or not. So even though they knew I had a tumor
and they operated on me to remove it, nobody thought it was cancerous
until a few days after surgery, when they did the biopsy.
The
surgery, it turns out, could have been life-threatening, in itself. My
cyst was described as looking like "a bunch of grapes," and each "grape"
needed to be drained of the fluid it contained. Thankfully, my
consultant did this with such precision that there was no spillage; if
the cancerous cells had leaked elsewhere in that area, chemotherapy
wouldn't have worked. I feel like I owe my life to the U.K. National
Health Service.
Because
of where the cancerous cyst had grown, my consultant explained I would
have to be operated on again to have my appendix and part of my bowel
removed, in case any of the cancer cells had transferred. That was
difficult for me — more on an emotional level than a physical one —
because I was left with scars all over my stomach.
[post_ads]I
was also suffering from a hormone imbalance because I only had one
ovary left instead of two, which made me very emotional. I was quite
spotty, I'd get hot flushes, I had periods every two weeks, and my body just didn't look like mine. It was horrible.
Cancer never goes away; it's always there, like a shadow following me around.
Eight
years later, I've still got one ovary, which works twice has hard, but
I've always known I would have to get it removed at some point. That
removal will actually be happening soon, so I'm having my eggs frozen
this summer and we'll go from there.
I'd love to have children one day, and knowing I'll need to go through IVF
to have them is scary. It makes me anxious because it might not work,
and I know how difficult that process can be. Cancer never goes away;
it's always there, like a shadow following me around. It's there in my
biannual check-ups; it's there when I have scares and think it's come
back, and it will be there when I come to think about having children.
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But then I think about how lucky I am: I'm still here, and I have the option to have my eggs frozen. Some women have to have all their reproductive organs taken out, and women 20 years ago wouldn't necessarily have had IVF available to them.
I
didn't know the first thing about ovarian cancer before my diagnosis,
but I hope other women do now. It's the sixth most common cancer, yet so
many people don't know the symptoms. They don't know that cervical
smear tests don't test for ovarian cancer, too. But you do know your own body, so if you think something's wrong, stick to your guns and push to get it tested.
So, What Are the Symptoms of Ovarian Cancer?
They can include (but aren't limited to):
- Persistent bloating
- Persistent stomach pain
- Finding it difficult to eat or feeling full quickly
- Needing to pee more often
- Back pain
- Changes in your bowel habits (such as diarrhea or constipation)
- Feeling tired all the time
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