I had to battle with ovarian cancer.
I don't mind telling people about my story and how it all began, it will help people realise what to look for and how I actually felt during the journey of having to battle with it.
I will try and explain as best as I can, but I was so ill I can't remember half the dates so I will explain briefly.
It all started back in December 2009, I was only 17 at the time. My stomach felt all bloated and I just felt really sluggish and my mum actually asked me if i was pregnant and I obviously knew I wasn't, but she kept doubting me.
So I had endless trips up to the doctors, and he said that it was just constipation, so he prescribed me with different laxatives every time I went up. Also I had endless trips up to A&E waiting for hours on ends for doctors to see me just to tell me to go home, do some exercise and eat something. By this time I was so ill my stomach looked like I was past 9 months pregnant (no exaggeration). I couldn't eat, drink or sleep properly, even though I looked huge I was losing a ton of weight underneath it all.
I was having loads of blood tests and x-rays and the doctors kept saying I had constipation even though deep down I knew it was something more, but what can you do? You just take what the doctors tell you, because they know right?
This one night I went into hospital, anyone could see that I was severely ill by now, my skin was dry, the whites of my eyes were yellow and I had cracked lips. I stayed in over-night and the following day i had a CT scan and the results came back that i had 'lumpy' ovaries. Well this could've been anything, so that following night I was transferred to a different hospital. At this point I really didn't know what to think, I was just so ill my head was all over the place.
Okay it was about January 2010 now and I still didn't know I had cancer but I was surrounded by MacMillan nurses.
So the results of my scan had came and and apparently I had a cyst on one of my ovaries which was leaking fluid from it which was causing this bloating, so I thought great somethings getting done about it and that would be the end of it, but no not for a long shot yet. I had to go into ultra-sound scan to have this bag attached to my abdomen to leak the fluid out before I could have an operation to remove my ovary, this took around about 3 days to do and they drained about 14 litres of fluid from me which is around about 3st in weight.
But that wasn't the end, it was just the beginning. I had to have an operation a few days after to remove my ovary with the cyst on and a benign tumor from my other ovary, I still didn't know I had cancer at this point. I went for my operation, everything went well but this is the shocking part, a day after my operation I was drugged up to my eyeballs still not knowing what I'd got, a nurse came in and said something like "A MacMillan nurse will come in, in a minute and discuss the next step which will be chemotherapy" That's when I found out.
At this point I'd burst into tears and was hysterical, it was horrible, I'd just found out that I'd got cancer.
One of the MacMillan nurses came in after that and explained to me that she didn't know what kind of chemotherapy I'd be having, she was trying to comfort me about not losing my hair, that was the thing I was most worried about.
Okay so I was out of hospital, I was recovering from my operation very well but I was still really weak, I needed to build up some strength before the next step, chemotherapy.
The appointment came through to see my consultant for the first time, and he would tell me all about the nasty stuff that I'd have to have put through my body.
I was scared and nervous, and thought I was prepared about what he was about to tell me, but I wasn't. Everything was double-dutch to me and my parents and I couldn't bring myself to absorb any of it.
Okay so I'd had intense chemotherapy for 3 months, not all at once but different intervals of it. It was around about my second cycle of chemotherapy that I was starting to lose my hair, it started thinning out and I'd wake up every morning with more and more hair on my pillow, it felt like someone had stabbed me in the heart, I was scared for my life. Eventually you could see my scalp through what little hair I had left, I looked severely ill at this point, but I just couldn't bring myself to shave it off, I loved my hair too much.
After a while the chemotherapy started messing my veins up and every day I'd have my cannula changed 3 times at the least. This one day it took about 4 different people to try and get a cannula in me to start my chemotherapy, I was crying my eyes out in pain. Eventually an anaesthetist came up and managed to get one in my arm in an awkward position, it was about 9pm and my consultant came up and said "Tomorrow you'll have a hickman line fitted" (A hickman line is a tube that goes in your chest into a main vein which is a lot bigger than ones in your arm) I was so relieved I couldn't take any more pain.
So I had my hickman line fitted and there were no problems after that, my final cycles of chemotherapy went smoothly and I was much happier that I didn't have to feel like a pin cushion.
But now I've survived cancer, alive and well and having regular blood tests and scans. I couldnt've done it without my mum, dad and brother though. They were with me every step of the way.
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