Mum dismissed signs of ovarian cancer blaming bloating on middle-aged spread for months
A MUM who thought her bulging belly was just middle aged spread was diagnosed with ovarian cancer after dismissing the symptoms for months. Anne Goward, from Canvey Island, Essex, was 51 when she noticed she had put on weight having been through the menopause two years earlier. Despite taking slimming tablets and cutting out gluten, […]
A MUM who thought her bulging belly was just middle aged spread was diagnosed with ovarian cancer after dismissing the symptoms for months.
Anne Goward, from Canvey Island, Essex, was 51 when she noticed she had put on weight having been through the menopause two years earlier.
Despite taking slimming tablets and cutting out gluten, alcohol and chocolate, the mum-of-one still couldn’t shift the pounds.
But she was also experiencing a nagging stomach pain on her right hand side and her belly was so bloated people had asked if she was pregnant.
Anne’s toilet habits had also changed and she was getting up to pass water three or four times during the night and had diarrhoea after eating rich food.
Busy mum
Still, she ignored her symptoms and carried on with her busy job as a business manager in the legal department of a bank in the city.
Life at home was also busy with her son Alfie, then 14, and partner, now husband, having four children of his own.
Anne looked up her symptoms online in January 2015 and even though ovarian cancer did come up, she dismissed it completely.
She said: “I’m kicking myself now that at this point I didn’t go to my GP.
“But I thought cancer would never happen to me and the symptoms, while annoying, were not constant and were mostly manageable.”
She told herself this despite her own mother dying of breast cancer in 2007 at the age of 71.
“My mum didn’t tell anyone about her symptoms for about six months and when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, I had a real go at her,” she said.
“But I left mine much longer than that, so I felt really bad at that point.”
Devastating diagnosis
She was eventually diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer in June 2015.
Anne said: “Looking back I’d probably been having symptoms since September 2014 and at the end I looked eight months pregnant.
“But I’d just got together with my husband so we were going out eating more and I definitely did put on weight with the menopause, which I never got rid of.
Looking back I’d probably been having symptoms since September 2014 and at the end I looked eight months pregnant
Annee Goward
“It seemed to creep up on me gradually and people even offered me their seat on the train and a guy at work jokingly asked if I needed to tell him something.
“I told myself I couldn’t afford to be ill and so carried on adapting my life around the symptoms.
“I tried cutting out gluten for a week to see if that made a difference.
“I stopped drinking alcohol and eating biscuits, chocolate and anything with cream in it.
“I took slimming tablets and was hardly eating anything yet I still looked dreadful.”
Anne had also been used to suffering pelvic pain as she had endometriosis, endometrial cysts and blocked fallopian tubes in her 20s, which led to eight years of fertility treatment to have her son.
She said: “I’d had it all my life. When I had periods they were terrible, so you get used to ignoring those sorts of pains.”
Anne had what she describes as a funny turn at her desk, in which her chest tightened and she knew she couldn’t brush off her situation any longer.
I took slimming tablets and was hardly eating anything yet I still looked dreadful
Anne Goward
She went to see a doctor who carried out tests and was expecting to be told she had Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) due to the changes in her toilet tablets.
But instead medics discovered cancer on both her ovaries, her omentum – a sheet of fatty tissue which stretches over the abdomen – the cervix, and her uterus.
She had to have four litres of fluid drained from her abdomen, a full hysterectomy as well as chemotherapy.
Anne said: “I regret waiting until I was really ill to getting checked out. It was easy for me to brush aside my symptoms as having the menopause, irritable bowel syndrome or eating too many pies.”
BEAT Ovarian Cancer - the signs to look out for
Anne is not alone in delaying seeing her GP because of her bloating despite this being one of the main symptoms of ovarian cancer, according to leading ovarian cancer support charity Ovacome.
The charity has come up with an easy to remember the main signs of the disease – with the acronym B.E.A.T:
- B is for bloating that is persistent and does not come and go;
- E is for eating difficulties and feeling fuller quicker;
- A is for abdominal or pelvic pain you feel most days;
- T is for toilet changes, bladder or bowel
In most cases the B.E.A.T. symptoms will be caused by something more common and easier to treat than ovarian cancer, says Ovacome. But if a woman has symptoms for two weeks or more – which are not her normal – it is worth getting checked out.
If you are concerned about ovarian cancer contact Ovacome’s freephone support line on 0800 008 7054 or contact www.ovacome.org.uk
She returned to work in April 2016 after the treatment was a success and in October that year she married Barrie, an MOT test inspector she had known for 11 years.
But in January 2017, she was told that she had a recurrence in her peritoneum, spleen and pelvic lymph node, which needed further chemotherapy.
This time Anne became resistant to the treatment but because she was found to have the BRCA1 gene – which predisposes women to ovarian and breast cancer – she was eligible to switch to relatively new drug, olaparib.
However, Anne and her oncologist suspect that the cancer is on the move again and she expects she may need further chemotherapy later this year.
She said: “I’ve done it twice before, I can do it again.”
For now though Anne and her family are getting on with their lives.
MORE ON OVARIAN CANCER
She is downsizing from a four bedroom house to a flat – paid off from a lump from her pension.
It overlooks the estuary at Canvey Island and she is excited about living their with Alfie, now aged 18 and considering university, and Barrie.
Anne is fundraising in support of leading ovarian cancer charity Ovacome, visit her page here.
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