Womb Awareness Day 2018: "You're too young to have cancer."

6 minute read time.

September is Womb Cancer Awareness month and Womb Cancer Awareness Day is the 20th September. To mark it, Sarah has written about womb cancer and what to be aware of.

Sarah was diagnosed with womb cancer in June 2017. She loves jigsaw puzzles, scuba diving and enjoys visiting Egypt where she has lots of friends who live there. Sarah also runs her own blogs, Fatigue vs frustration, Concentrate on the what is and not the what ifs, It’s the season! and How life changes after cancer.

It still surprises me today whenever I tell people about my cancer diagnosis. It’s: “oh you’re too young to have cancer”. I was diagnosed with womb cancer in June 2017 and, to my surprise, only 1% diagnosed are in my age group. I was 37 at the time of my diagnosis and what surprised me the most is I hadn’t heard of womb cancer. My biggest fear was always breast cancer, as you hear about it so many times and big campaigns to draw your attention to it and make sure that you are breast aware. Which is fantastic, as unfortunately so many ladies and some gents get breast cancer. It’s so very important to be aware of what to look out for and get checked by your GP.

But what about womb cancer? I hadn’t even heard of it, never mind being aware of its symptoms.

The 20th of September is Womb Cancer Awareness day and its colour is peach, are you going to go peach for womb cancer?

So what do you look for? Well the most important thing to remember is to report any changes to your Doctor: any irregular bleeding, or bleeding after the menopause. You may find that you’re losing weight, getting very tired and getting cramping pain or loss of appetite. It’s so important not to be embarrassed to ask for help. There can also be many other reasons for having these symptoms, including fibroids, but it’s always better not to second guess a symptom and to not think ‘it can’t be that I am too young or old’. It’s important if in doubt go and get checked out.

Womb cancer can be diagnosed in a few different ways, one of which being an ultrasound to check the lining of your womb. You will usually get asked about when your last period was, as a thickening of the lining that is not caused by the menstrual cycle is something to check for.

The Doctor also looks for anything that maybe noticeably wrong, like masses in the lining. Then a hysteroscopy may be performed. This is a special instrument that has a camera and other instruments to look at the inside of your womb to check for anything untoward inside. Biopsies can be taken and sent to a lab to look for cancer cells.

Early stage womb cancer is commonly treated by a hysterectomy. Now, more research in some areas have found that hormone treatment can be success and there are a number of ladies who have been successfully treated, which is particularly good for young ladies who wish to try to preserve their fertility.

Womb cancer is not as common as breast or ovarian or even cervical cancer but it’s one of the silent killers and can still be responsible for the death of many ladies, yet it’s one of the easiest to be treated if found at an early enough stage.

Treatment options often depend on grading and staging and the earlier it is caught, the more treatable it is. If more ladies are aware of the symptoms and get checked out quickly it is possible, I hope, to reduce the many that sadly lose their lives. They are someone’s mother, sister, daughter.

For me my personal experience of womb cancer wasn’t just very scary and full of emotions but also a devastating blow to any chances of me having children of my own. I used to think ‘its ok I don’t need to think about this now, go and work get some money in’ and I was never really bothered about having children. But, I was so surprised by my feelings about the subject when my choice was taken away from me. For my parents, it left them with no grandchildren of their own. My Dad was really upset, he felt I had been let down badly - I had experienced irregular bleeding for so long and it was so difficult to get anyone other than my GP to take me seriously as they kept saying its only fibroids. I knew there was more to it and I kept thinking if this is just a couple of small fibroids (which I did have too), I pitied anyone with much larger ones. All doubt was put into my mind and I stopped believing in my mind and body. My head was so messed up that I had some counselling. I was so afraid of confrontation that I would run away. I seemed to have lost my ability to fight for myself.

I was then referred to a hospital in another area. My consultant and specialist nurse are wonderful and I can never thank my Macmillan nurse enough for the warm and friendly one-to-one individual treatment. If I needed to talk and she wasn’t in the office at the time, she would always call me back. I felt trust in my team, which had previously been destroyed, as I had been left untrusting and doubting every other Doctor. My gynaecologist - I felt totally at ease with and confident in his opinion. I was told that a total hysterectomy (where my ovaries, fallopian tubes and cervix would be removed) would be the best way forward: hence why for me having children is no longer an option. I was in total shock. I was thinking: am I looking at someone else here, it can’t be me, surely?

I must say I was relieved that I only needed surgery, as some have had chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Macmillan became my saviour mentally as when I joined the Online Community I was at my most vulnerable state. I even called the Support Line and the person on the phone was wonderful and arranged for some local support - they were able to give me information and support about my finances. I was worried about finances as I was off work and I was worried about paying my bills.

But joining the Online Community has also given me the opportunity to help others, because if I hadn’t had the help and support that I did, I know I would be a lot worse off mentally. Being able to chat to others in a similar situation really does help and if I can help someone newly diagnosed realise that there is help out there and what they’re feeling is normal and that there is no right or wrong way to feel, because it’s your individual circumstances that are important. I still have wobbles in confidence with my health as I do have other health issues but I can say now after more check-ups that 1 year on I am cancer free!

Having womb cancer had stopped me from scuba diving, which I love, and the other health complications are hampering my recovery so that I can’t get back into diving, but I try to swim each week to try and keep my strength and fitness up. Throughout this, I have found love of art and I find this very therapeutic and helps calm my mind.

So if you, your mum, daughter or sister is showing any signs then encourage them to see their GP and seek a professional opinion. What’s stopping you being womb aware?

GBear

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