Ovarian Cancer

What would you feel if you were told you had a life-threatening illness that you’d never heard of? You go to the doctor with vague symptoms such as indigestion, changed bowel habits, a swollen abdomen. He sends you to the hospital for tests, the results come back and you are told that unfortunately the symptoms you are experiencing are ovarian cancer. What goes through your mind at that point? Am I going to die, will I need an operation, why did this happen to me? About 6800 women a year in the UK are diagnosed with ovarian cancer and yet it is a disease that’s seldom mentioned and whose symptoms often go unrecognised until it has reached an advanced state.

The ovarian cancer website brings you stories of ordinary women from different backgrounds and cultures, some whose lives have returned to normal after the treatment, others whose lives have not. You can see them and hear them talk about their symptoms and treatments, what they did to recover, how it affected them and their families, and the ways in which it has changed their lives. Maybe you or someone you know has ovarian cancer. Perhaps you treat or care for women with ovarian cancer or maybe you just want to understand more about this condition and what it is like to live with day after day. Whatever the situation we hope you’ll find the ovarian cancer website informative and useful.     

Interview 2: Losing weight and swelling tummy also stupidly didn't ring any bells with me or made me start to think that I had cancer.

Interview 30: Beginning I told them they must be dreaming. It cannot happen to me because in my family there's nobody who has ever had it. Even up to this day, I believe it's a dream. And to me the dream is a bad, bad dream.

Interview 31: Try and make yourself feel a little bit more confident and I think maybe we can, we can do that with make-up where men can't. And maybe that helps to give us back our self-esteem a little bit.

Interview 03: I think what people cannot stand is this feeling that you've got to be positive, and if you're not positive you're not going to make it. And I think you've got to be realistic that, you know, having been through that sort of treatment there are going to be times when, or however positive a person you are, there are going to be times when you're going to hit rock bottom and not to feel guilty that you feel bad and you’re feeling low because it's an abnormal situation. And I think sometimes because it's an abnormal situation, people need a bit more support than they would normally accept if they were going through something else.