Amy Van Wyk and her husband Marcel had picked out the perfect home for a family.
The four-bedroom detached property was close to good schools and they couldn’t wait to fill it with kids.
The couple married in 2014 and had been trying for a baby ever since – but Amy never fell pregnant.
Worried that the stress of her job as a primary school teacher, alongside studying for a masters in history, was affecting her chances of having a baby, Amy took a career break to focus on falling pregnant.
Amy, now 37, from Epsom, Surrey, was feeling tired and run down, was going to the toilet all the time and was suffering from bloating but doctors dismissed it. She was told she did have an ovarian cyst but that it was harmless.
It was only when she actually moved into their new home and registered with a new surgery that she was taken seriously – and she found out that she had late-stage ovarian cancer.
Her only chance of survival was an operation to remove the tumour, both her ovaries and her fallopian tubes, which means she is now infertile.
She explains: ‘I was born with a heart condition and I was getting very tired and breathless so I had tests for that but it came back fine.
‘I thought it was because I was working long hours.
‘Alongside that, we were trying for a baby and we had fertility investigations in 2016, but again nothing came back.
‘By the time we moved to our dream house, in the summer of 2018, I was needing the toilet a lot, getting abdominal pain and suffering from bloating.
‘I’d been back and forth to the GP but they never said it was anything to worry about.
‘When we moved and I saw the new GP, I mentioned everything to her and she thought I needed scans and a CA125 blood test.
‘The blood tests showed something was really wrong and I needed an urgent referral to an oncologist.’
An ultrasound scan showed a mass and a lot of fluid in her abdomen. A CT scan and MRI two weeks later revealed how serious the situation was.
Amy explains: ‘I will never forget the words used by the consultant when my husband asked about preserving my fertility that this was now a matter of life and death.’
Amy had always been healthy – she ate a vegetarian diet and enjoyed running, swimming and going to the gym. Four weeks before she was diagnosed, she had run a 10k.
She was only 36. Of the 7,470 people diagnosed with ovarian cancer each year in the UK, just 202 were aged under 40.
She says: ‘Cancer had never crossed my mind because of my healthy lifestyle.
‘Initially, I felt denial, because I was so healthy. I was shocked and it was so surreal that this was happening to me.
‘Then I just thought ‘I have to get through this.'”
On 22 October, Amy had surgery to remove the mass, both her ovaries and her fallopian tubes, which meant that she would never be able to have children of her own.
Amy says: ‘We’d been planning and hoping for children for a long time and suddenly that dream was taken us.
‘We were told there was no chance of us having children naturally and that took a lot of adjusting.
‘There was six weeks between being referred and having the operation and everything changed. Suddenly it was about surviving but we were also having to deal with infertility.’
Surgeons also removed four litres of fluid but unfortunately, the disease was widespread and they weren’t able to remove it all.
A biopsy showed that she has a rare type of ovarian cancer called low grade serous.
Amy started chemotherapy five weeks after surgery, which lasted until March 2019.
‘Chemotherapy was really hard. I had joint pain, I was tired, breathless and sick. I lost my taste and my hair completely fell out in four weeks.
‘Before the operation, I was emaciated because I couldn’t eat but I had all the fluid on my stomach. My appearance changed a lot and that really impacted how I felt about myself.’
Amy is now on a maintenance dose of chemotherapy every three weeks to keep the residual disease at bay. She is stable but still living with cancer.
Throughout her treatment, Amy has tried to remain positive and has thrown herself into running.
She says: ‘I was walking as soon as I could after surgery and then I gradually built it up. It took me about six months before I could run but I kept at it.
‘Now I do a Park Run every week and it really motivates me. It is something to focus on each week.’
Amy has also been working with Ovacome, a charity dedicated to helping people with ovarian cancer.
‘They’ve been absolutely amazing,’ she says. ‘They have a support group for younger women and it’s been lovely to chat to ladies like me who have gone through cancer and infertility like me.’
In March this year, she is going to be a model for the Ovacome charity fashion show, to raise awareness of the disease.
She adds: ‘I’ll be modelling a wedding outfit, a day outfit and an evening outfit and I have lots of friends coming.
What are the symptoms of ovarian cancer?
Ovacome has come up with the easy to remember acronym BEAT, highlighting the main signs of what to look out for:
B is for bloating that is persistent and does not come and go;
E is for eating difficulties and feeling fuller;
A is for abdominal or pelvic pain you feel most days
T is for toilet changes, bowel or bladder.
If you have any of these symptoms for more than two weeks, while it is unlikely you have ovarian cancer, it is worth getting checked by your GP.
There is no screening programme in place for ovarian cancer and a smear test will not pick it up and so it is particularly important for women to be vigilant towards the symptoms.
A simple CA125 blood test can identify whether further investigation is needed for the possibility of ovarian cancer.
‘We don’t want to alarm women if they present with any of these symptoms and the chances are that they will be caused by something less serious,’ says Ovacome’s chief executive Victoria Clare.
‘But it is important that the symptoms – which are very easy to brush aside – are not are not ignored and are checked out.’
‘It’s important to raise awareness but I think it will also be nice to have fun and feel special. It is important to come together with other women who have experiences with ovarian cancer.’
Amy also wants to speak out about her experiences to show doctors and other women that younger women can get the disease too.
She adds: ‘I am now working on a programme teaching medical students about the signs and symptoms.
‘I feel like because it’s rarer in younger women and the symptoms can fit with other things, it is dismissed.’
Amy questions whether she could have kept her fertility if she had been listened to and her cancer had been caught earlier but she also feels an earlier diagnosis would have stopped a lot of the pain, confusion and upset she went through.
‘Ovarian cancer has taken my fertility and ability to have a family. It has also brought fear and uncertainty into my family and caused a lot of sadness,’ she says.
If you are concerned about ovarian cancer, contact the ovarian cancer charity Ovacome on its freephone support line 0800 008 7054 or visit ovacome.org.uk.
source https://metro.co.uk/2020/01/22/teacher-quits-job-focus-becoming-mum-discovers-ovarian-cancer-36-12090850/
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