My Battle Against Ovarian Cancer

Emma Colledge, Ovarian Germ Cell Cancer Thriver

Hello ! My name is Emma and I’m 23 years old. At the beginning of September I got diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Leading up to my diagnosis:

February - I noticed a lot of bloating but I put it down to just eating certain foods making it flare up. I went and started my new job and completed all the physical training and noticed when I lay on my stomach it felt like I had a ball in there, so I took a pregnancy test just to make sure- all negative. May - I continued on with life as I felt fine, started getting annoyed that my work trousers were tight so managed to get a doctors appointment. I started to drink a lot more and needed to wee more yet again I didn’t think anything of it except my belly was large and hard. Went to the doctors and they said are you sure you’re not pregnant and said to go home and do a test but she would refer me for a scan. I waited and waited for the scan trying to be understanding that things take time and I also didn’t for one minute think it could have been cancer! August - I couldn’t even eat without feeling sick all the time. I could only eat tiny portions so went to the walk in centre who gave me anti sickness and rang my doctor to get me a scan as he was concerned why my stomach was so hard. I went away for 2 weeks with the cadets living life as normal as possible but I still struggled to eat but it didn’t stop me doing anything. I was just very tired. I had a doctors appointment 3 days after I got back from camp and the doctor booked me for emergency bloods and referred me for an urgent referral to gynaecology, to be seen within 2 weeks.

September - In that time I started getting pain in my lower abdomen so rang 111. They saw me and gave me painkillers and said if you are still in pain in the morning go to A&E. So I did and got taken to have an ultrasound within an hour to find a 30cm ovarian cyst.

They admitted me into hospital to do further scans and blood tests and the plan was for planned surgery to get the cyst removed, I had a CT the following morning and it came back as cancer. I never in a million years thought that at the age of 23 I would be going through this .

On the 22nd September I went and had my first surgery to remove the cyst. It was successful, however they did find deposits of cancer on some of my other organs so they took biopsy’s.

2 weeks later (6th October) I went for my second surgery where they successfully removed all visible signs of cancer. They took my spleen and some other parts out too! I also had a full hysterectomy while I was down in surgery. ***

To follow Emma's journey please visit her Facebook page here