Kim, 30 years

I was diagnosed two years ago with ovarian cancer at the age of 28.

Initially I had given up smoking and when I started to put on a lot of weight in my stomach, I just thought it was because I’d given up smoking and was eating a lot. But then my periods became erratic and I knew something was definitely wrong.

I went to my GP who sent me for an ultrasound, from which they found a massive cyst on my ovary measuring roughly 28x23x12cm. During the first surgery to remove the cyst, a frozen section testing came back negative for cancer. Because the initial test came back clear, they left the remaining ovary and my uterus; I can’t tell you how relieved I was. But, following the surgery, the full pathology on the cyst showed that it was in fact cancerous.

I was so devastated this could happen. My son was two at the time and we wanted to have more children but after a consultation with Dr Jane McNeilage, (an associate of Dr Tom Jobling at Monash Medical Centre Moorabbin), she laid it all on the line and said my son needed a mum more than he needed a brother or sister. That really brought home how serious this was and we decided on the spot to have a full hysterectomy.

So two weeks after the initial surgery, I went back for a total hysterectomy, removal of the omentum and removal of the appendix. I had to have six rounds of chemotherapy because the cyst had burst and the fluid from it was surrounding my organs, (there was a potential for the cancer to spread just from the fluid). Chemo included all the usual horrible symptoms, (hair loss, nausea, leg pain, joint pain etc) but I just kept telling myself that after the chemo that would be the end of this. I mean, I wasn’t about to curl up into a ball and let this take over. I just did what I had to do to get through it.

I consider myself one of the lucky ones – the cancer had been contained to the one ovary which meant it was at stage one and we had been fortunate to have already started our family.

Thanks for listening to my story.

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