Interview OV35

Age at interview: 38

Age at diagnosis: 32

Brief Outline: Ovarian cancer diagnosed in 1997 after finding a lump in her abdomen. Treated by surgical removal of both ovaries.

Background: Housewife, separated, 2 children.

Overheard her partner telling someone else the diagnosis while she was still semi-conscious after her surgery.

And in fact when I, the way in which I found out was, I was back in my hospital room and my partner was on the phone and I think he probably thought I was still absolutely out for the count but, you know, I was conscious, and he told somebody else on the phone but I didn't really mind because I think the morphine was, was very effective. And so when he came to tell me I already knew what had happened. Much to his horror. 

So he knew before you did?

Yeah. Yeah.

At what stage did the doctors come round to tell you?

They came that day but I don't really, I mean that day was kind of, it was a bit of a blur.  
 

Agreed to removal of the second ovary if the first was found to be cancerous.

Oh and the other thing was that I had to consent to them doing, they were going to do frozen sections during the surgery because if it was cancer they wanted to do the correct operation and I'd agreed that they could take the other ovary, because I'd been advised that if one ovary had become affected by cancer then the other one probably would at some point too, or there was a higher risk, and that it would be safer if I'd decided that I'd had my children to have both done, so then I have to get used to HRT as well.

I felt at the time that I'd finished my family and I certainly felt that if I was at risk of cancer then I wanted to make sure that I was going to be strong and well for the children that I had. I think subsequently I thought maybe that decision might not have been one that I was altogether happy with, but to be honest I probably would have made the same decision again.

I think I didn't really fully explore whether I could save eggs or frozen embryos or anything like that because I did have two little children and I had a very short time to decide. And also I thought, you know, I was married at the time and assumed that was my relationship and, so I think although I have considered the, whether or not that was the right decision since then, at the time it felt like the right decision to make.

Could not adjust to normal life after having her ovaries removed as treatment for early cancer.

It must have been odd for the people around me because of course they were all really pleased because it looked like that had gone very well and what a horrible shock but everything's going to be fine, and I think that the recovery from that for me took such a long time. The emotionally, you know, I, even a year afterwards was still reeling from it. And I think that's probably quite difficult to understand when, if you're someone looking on, because you think 'oh come on everything's great' and you're being told the good stuff, and, and you're fine. I didn't feel fine.

I think I left hospital and I really was aware that despite being told that everything looks like it's going to be fine, they can't say a hundred percent but it looked really good and the prognosis was great. I felt absolutely terrified and I knew that there was a huge kind of conflict between what I was being told and what I felt.

I think, some of it you just need to talk, you need to say how you feel, you don't want anyone to say 'ah but you shouldn't because everything's going to be all right,' or 'but the doctor said this.' You just want to say 'look I feel like this, it's got nothing logical about it, it's nothing to do with the prognosis or the treatment or anything, I just feel scared'. 

Having cancer made her feel stronger and better able to tackle other problems.

I think it's made me slightly more resilient than I was, when difficult things have happened, which they have in the years that came next, I didn't think it was the end of the world. It was difficult and, but I'd already had difficult things to deal with and, and you realise that you can actually survive difficult things.