The beginning may 2007

2 minute read time.
Ok.. it ALL started last may. me and my boyfriend saved up for a year and half in a bid to go on our first holiday together! so.. we got the money together and booked a two week party holiday in Majorca, Magaluff. 18th of may, we flew and arrived and the holiday began. we lazed around the pool during the day and partied like crazy by night!! just the way i liked it :) four days into it and i woke up after a crazy night with horrendous stomach ache.. (id had pain a few months earlier. so bad i was unable to walk. the emergency doctor refused to come out so i waited and got an appointment the next day. they put it down to a water infection and packed me off with anti biotics) so, i plodded on during the day soaking up the sun and strollin by the beach still with the pain. i was thinking it was a bad hangover or a dodgy stomach so let the day pass. we decided to stay in that night and lounge on the balcony. we'd dicussed going to the doctors the next day if the pain was'nt any better. which it wernt.. so off we went at 10 in the mornin, planning on gettin the pain sorted and go for breakfast afterwards. the doctor examined my tummy.. (asking if i was pregnant, may i add! the cheek!) to be fair, it was swollen like i was three months.. just thought id put weight on! he sent me to the local hospital via ambulance and within two hours id had a CT, ultrsound, blood, unrine and xrays done and admitted with what they called 'a mass' in my stomach. they told me i needed an op to remove this 'mass' (of which i had no clue what a mass was) so we settled into my lovely private room with ensuit, shower and balcony and waited for it to be over so i could get on with my holiday! four days later, i was sent down to surgery and endured a 4 hour op in which the 'mass' was removed. weighing in at a huuuuge 5kg which to be precise is 11 and half lbs! i thought it was a cycst on my overay.. so did they. but when the test came back from the lab, it was discovered that the surgeon had removed not only my overy but a tumor also. i wasnt told this in majorca.. which im glad about. my gp told me when i returned home. this was when i was told i may need chemo or i may not. depending on my blood results. so i waited another three days and went to the Bradford Royal Infirmary and the gyne-oncolgist told me (rather abrubtly may i add) that my tumor markers (which i had no idea what these were at the time) were supposed to be less than 7 and mine were bordering on 5,000. i was scared!(i later realised peoples had been around 100,000s before) he then told me that im lucky becuase its completly curable and that he's referring me to St James Hospital in leeds, which is a recognised cancer hospital. the date of when id be startin chemo wasnt clear.. it took around 7 weeks for me to actually be told id definitly be having chemo. this was becuase my markers started to drop. then they increased so the decision was final!
Anonymous
  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    Hello Joanne, what a time you've had, looking forward to hearing how your treatment has gone, and hoping that your feeling well

    Alisonxxx

  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    Thanks Alison, I'll be writing up more bowt my story etc! iv had as much of a time as everyone else.. probably not half as bad actually. hope you ok.. and ill be reading more on ur story too :) xx

  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    i shall be watching out for your blog, i think the way you write is brilliant, how nice to read about someone so young and full of life.

    Alisonxxx

  • FormerMember
    FormerMember

    I had my chemo in autumn 2006, and lay staring at, and feeling totally like, that Russian Litvinenko, the one who'd been poisoned with Caesium 123 or whatever (I was having concomm chemoradiotherapy for gyno cancer).  Hope you're NOT feeling like that.  Your story really touched me, and I want to wish you good luck.  My GP told me I'd prob just got fibroids, as I'd suddenly started leaking horror-film quantities of blood.  I had a morning at the hospital and discovered, yes, I'd got massive fibroids (but not 11kg,crikey! lady!), cysts on my ovaries and cervical cancer.  What a day what was!  xxxxx Penny  Please let us know how you are going on, Joanne.