I write this post 5 days after my operation to remove my giant 5kg tumour from my right ovary! Right now I feel on top of the world, feeling the best I’ve felt in months but I only get to truly feel this way because of the lows I’ve experienced along my journey.
So let’s start at the beginning, I thought 2024 was going to be a good year. In March my mum got diagnosed with bowel cancer 11 years after surviving breast cancer! We as a family felt defeated by this, poor mum having to go through chemo and surgery AGAIN. I had just started in my new role, I’d received a promotion this year with a lot of new pressure. This pressure and the stress of my mum being ill I think masked a lot of my symptoms such as lower back pain and not losing weight despite eating less and exercising more!
Then in June I realised after going to the gym that I had been constipated for 3 days, very unlike me. So I went to my GP where he rushed me to A&E with suspected appendicitis. Later that same day I found out I had 2 tumours, one on each ovary but at that point they weren’t cancerous. Due to their size being as big as grapefruits I would need both removed with the real possibility of losing all of my fertility. This hit me and my family hard, I’d not yet had children and I did want a family in the future. So I spent the next week coming to terms with losing my fertility.
The 1st of July, 2 weeks on from A&E, I had a meeting with the gynaecologist. This is when I found out I didn’t just have tumours on both ovaries but they were also cancerous. My AFP tumour marker was 1780.. a normal value for a female is 2-7 when not pregnant. This tumour marker indicated it’s a germ cell tumour and that’s when I found this wonderful charity! Although being told I had cancer should be a shock, it wasn’t. I had always expected it to happen to me one day. Just not this early on in my life!
The one positive I got from this cancer diagnosis was the hope of actually keeping my fertility which wasn’t an option before. So my surgery date for biopsies to be taken was set 2 weeks later. It went ahead but it was only able to take pictures due to how fragile my tumours were and they didn’t want to spill fluid inside me spreading the cancer! He did note in those 4 weeks my tumour had grown larger to the size of a large melon showing it has a fast growth rate and needs to be tackled quickly. So the following week I started chemotherapy, 4 rounds of BEP. I was scared but ready to see these tumours start to shrink. These tumours respond very well to chemotherapy thankfully.
Over the 3 months of chemotherapy, the treatment for me got harder. What I thought at the time were side effects of chemotherapy, the sickness, fatigue and breathlessness really got to me. Being hospitalised with complications really made me low. This is why it’s okay to not be okay, when you have cancer you need to be allowed to feel like crap because everything you go through is crap mostly. Thankfully I have amazing family and friends which got me through these tough times and for which I’m incredibly grateful for. The time came to see how well my chemotherapy had worked, the one tumour on my left ovary had completely disappeared! Amazing.
Unfortunately the right hand tumour had grown larger. To the size of a watermelon! This is what was causing all of my terrible issues, being sick from it compressing my stomach, not breathing properly because it had taken out half of my right lung and issues with the toilet from it pushing on my bowels and bladder.
This was a very rare complication of chemotherapy, where the cancer cells are destroyed, however the non cancerous part of the tumour continues to grow. I believe this is called growing teratoma syndrome. This only occurs in 2% of germ cell cancer patients and I just wanted to know why me! Overall my odds of having both this cancer and my complications was 0.04%. I had to make light of it and made a funny song about all the things that were more likely to happen to me rather than this cancer diagnosis. Like being struck by lightning twice in the same year!
My next step was surgery and honestly I felt so weak at this point from the chemo and how much strain this tumour was putting on my body. 2 weeks after receiving my scan results I went under the knife. Within 1 day post surgery I already felt stronger than I did pre my operation. This cancer may have taken one of my ovaries but I saved the other. It may have taken my happiness for a while but now I get to feel the high of feeling stronger. I thought I would never say this but I actually really like my scar and am happy to show it off!
I also know this cancer will still affect me in years to come with symptoms from chemo and mentally with the worry it’ll come back. I still have to wait for more chemotherapy post operation, it’s very likely and I will find out in a couple of weeks. But what I have learnt is to take every day of happiness and keep it for as long as you can. What I also learnt is you don’t need to be brave and you can have your down days! The major thing from my post should be; it’s okay not to be okay and eventually it will be okay again for you one day.
And why not finish this off with saying Fuck cancer! I will beat you! - Alex
If you'd like to support Alex, she has been raising an incredible amount to support The Robin Cancer Trust - donate here.
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