Cancer or not cancer? How I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer (part 1)

As March starts I decided to write a blog not about beauty or well-being, as I traditionally do. On 16 March 2015, I had my first terrifying encounter with the big C, and I would like to tell you more about it.

But before I tell you what happened one year ago I actually have to go back several years when my first cancer encounter started: I was 18 years old and my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. And then in 2010, when she was diagnosed with ovarian and breast cancer again. Lucky for us, she is still alive and well, free of disease (and now making up the small percentage of ovarian cancer patients who are still alive after 5 years).

This March I also have 2 happy things to celebrate. This March I celebrate 10 years that I moved from Brazil to Australia, where home is now. The second reason to celebrate, thou, is much more important. Two years ago, my father was diagnosed with a rare form of liver cancer called cholangiocarcinoma, and was submitted to a surgery where he had less than 50% of surviving. And again lucky for us, even thought he is still under treatment, he is alive and still enjoying life (today 10th of March is his “re-birthday”). So cancer has been around our family for a few-to-many years now.

So that leaves us with my sister (aka guardian-angel), who is (and I hope will always be) healthy. She followed dad in profession and became a (great) gynaecologist, and I used to do regular check-ups with her. So this brings me to back to the story that I wanted to tell you today. Back in the very last day I was visiting Brazil in September 2013, I did a routine check-up with her. To our surprise she found something during the clinical examination: a 1.5 cm benign ovarian cyst in my right ovary. It was so small it didn't require immediate surgery, but because I was going to be in Australia she asked me to follow it up with an ultrasound every year. At the time, I was quite concerned about it as the chance of such small cyst being found in a clinical exam was so low, I was sure it meant something, I was just not sure what yet.

In January 2014 I repeated the ultrasound, and nothing had changed. Last year I waited until grant season, our busiest time at work, was over, so I did the ultrasound in March instead. A few days later I went back to my GP, Dr Dan Moylan, to get the results. He is an amazing doctor and very caring. I never expected to hear what I heard that morning, that my cyst was still there, with the same size, but there was something else in my left ovary, and it could be cancer. Dan calmed me down and organised an appointment with an onco-gynaecologist for me. I left his office feeling completely lost. I tried to call my fiancé Ian, who was interstate, but he didn't pick up the phone. I didn't know what to do. In situations like this I would usually call dad, but he had his own C issues to deal with. So I called my sister. I took some photos of the ultrasound images and sent them back to her, who shared them with colleagues and the consensus was one: whatever that was, it should be removed from my body.

Two days later, I went to see the gynaecologist. She told me she didn’t trust the place where I did the first ultrasound and asked me to repeat it somewhere else. Due to the possible urgency, it was all arranged for the same day. The result came as a big relief to all of us: I was told what I had was just a benign cyst, like the one on the other side, just bigger. I was still concerned due to my family history, but the gynaecologist ensured me there was nothing to worry about, as I was young and had a healthy lifestyle. Without examining me, without asking for a blood test, she only asked me to repeat the ultrasound in 6 months and return to see her.. I still remember sitting in my car in front of her office and calling my sister, who said “I didn’t like those images; I want you to remove it anyway”. Lucky me!