Sample case studies
This is a small sample of the many case studies Ovacome has
available for the media to work with.
To speak to any of our existing case studies or if you have a
specific request please contact Amanda Hayhurst on 0772 020 5581 or
Juliet Morrison on 0778 4652520.
Gillian
Gillian believes that a doctor overlooked her
ovarian cancer over as many as 10 visits: dismissing her symptoms
as a urinary tract infection. Over the course of a year, the
34-year-old quantity surveyor, who lives in Sonning Common,
Oxfordshire, had suffered from blood in her urine and progressively
increased abdominal pain and bloating which, she says, eventually
gave the impression that she was pregnant. But despite presenting
with classic ovarian cancer symptoms, her doctor sent her away with
a series of antibiotics.
"I had started to doubt myself. I'd never really been unwell
before and I started to wonder whether I had become a hypochondriac
visiting the doctor every six to eight weeks" says Gillian.
"Looking back it was as clear as daylight what was wrong with me. I
had the classic ovarian cancer symptoms. In the end, the bloating
got so bad that my stomach was protruding and I looked like I was
pregnant."
During the course of the antibiotics Gillian's symptoms would
improve and blood in her urine would disappear, but after six to
eight weeks she would be back at her GP complaining of the same
discomfort.
Fortunately, a year after Gillian first started having problems
in June 2003, she moved home and her new GP took a different course
of action. He referred her to an urologist, after stronger
antibiotics failed to work. It was then during a scan that it
emerged that her condition was more serious and after a
gynaecological appointment and surgery to remove a cyst the size of
a 23 week old foetus from her right ovary, it was found in December
2004 that she did in fact have stage I ovarian cancer at the age of
29. Gillian's was a granulosa cell tumour and a year after having
surgery her cancer reappeared. She was then given five rounds of
chemotherapy, so intense that it left her hospital bound for three
days at a time, and finally she was given a radical hysterectomy in
January 2008.
"I was told that it was no longer about preserving my fertility,
but about saving my life. I am 34 years old now, have just got
married and would have loved to have been able to start a family.
That is not an option for us now."
Kathryn
Kathryn, who was diagnosed 10 years ago with stage I ovarian
cancer at the age of 40, is an example of the importance of early
detection of the disease.
Kathyrn's cancer - which presented itself as a large cyst on her
left ovary - was spotted during screening for IVF. "I was very
lucky and would probably not still be here if I hadn't had that
scan," says Kathryn. "At the time, I had absolutely no symptoms and
felt well." And while she concedes that screening for ovarian
cancer would throw up some medical dilemmas it would inevitably
save the lives of people like her, who have no idea that anything
is wrong. "Screening is not a magic answer to preventing ovarian
cancer, but it is something which I unquestionably benefited from,"
she says.
Because the cancer was caught at such an early stage, Kathryn
did not have to go through chemotherapy. "I feel extremely
fortunate that not only was my cancer caught at an early enough
stage to be treated effectively, but that I also did not have to
face an early menopause, or the fact that I would never be able to
conceive," says Kathryn. Kathryn was monitored for five years and
fully discharged from hospital in 2005.
Georgina
Six
years ago, 65-year-old grandmother Georgina was told that she had a
poor prognosis and may only live another six months.
Georgina, from West Yorkshire, first noticed that she had a huge
lump in her abdomen. She had just returned from a Christmas trip to
Spain in December 2002 before downsizing into a bungalow with her
husband Peter. While away she had suffered from a bad bout of
diarrhoea and had noticed that her abdomen looked swollen and this
continued when she returned home. "I'd been up in the night with
stomach pain after several weeks of diarrhoea and nausea and it was
when I was rubbing my tummy that I noticed what felt like a hard
leather football. I knew at that point that something was seriously
wrong," says Georgina. "Up until the few weeks before this point I
had felt very well. The only thing looking back that was different
was that I needed to pass fluid more often than I normally would
and I had bouts of what I thought were IBS, but neither conditions
made me feel that they were serious enough to seek medical
advice.
Georgina had the most advanced, stage IV, ovarian cancer, which
means that the cancer had spread outside of her abdomen. At a push,
she was told that medics might be able to keep her going for
another three years, with intensive chemotherapy possibly holding
her cancer at bay. But in spring 2009, five and a half years after
her last session of chemo, Georgina has never felt better. Her
CA-125, the blood test which can detect the presence of a tumour,
had fallen from 9,920 to a steady 10 or 11 for the past five years
and she was busy enjoying her five granddaughters, family and
retirement.