“I never thought I would be glad to say I’m 60”

Maghera woman Pauline Donnelly believed she was suffering from fatigue until she started running to the toilet more often than usual.

That’s when she discovered she had ovarian cancer.

“I was diagnosed in April of 2021. I was 57 years old, very fit, active and busy," she said.

“I thought I was very healthy and I was very much into my fitness.

“But after receiving the diagnosis in April, I had been feeling very fatigued for quite some time. Of course, we were in the middle of the pandemic and I’ve sort of put a lot of that down to just being fed up with the pandemic, the previous Christmas we'd been in lockdown and couldn't mix with family. I wasn't doing my usual activities.”

Pauline did not think that there was something else behind her fatigue and thought it was due to being a menopausal woman.

"I was out for a walk with a couple of sisters in Garvagh Forest and I was saying how tired I was and they were saying how tired they were. Then we're all thinking ‘You know what? We're menopausal women, in the middle of a pandemic’.”

After that, Pauline decided to go to the GP due to the neverending fatigue and a frequent need to go to the toilet.

“Around that time, during my walks, I was getting a funny thing in my lower abdomen that wasn’t pain or discomfort, I was just really aware of my lower abdomen,” said Pauline.

Pauline went to have her bloods taken on April 9 2021. The doctor called her back the following Monday and told her she had run the CA-125 test to detect ovarian cancer. Pauline had no idea. Her results came back with numbers too high to be normal. A normal CA-125 test results are between 0 and 35 units/mL and Pauline’s results were 3700 units/mL.

“That escalated things very very quickly. She immediately got me an ultrasound scan done for the very next day in Magherafelt,” Pauline continued.

After the ultrasound, without her husband due to the Covid restrictions, Pauline went to see a

gynaecologist who performed an internal camera scan.

“They sat me down and they said they found a cyst on my ovary or fallopian tube. I wasn't concerned because I thought that's easy enough just to get that sorted. As he talked on further, he talked about my fitness and how it will be hitting me hard and then the penny dropped. He said I had ovarian cancer.”

After further tests, the doctors told her that she had stage 4 cancer.

“He said it's fed up into my chest, around my oesophagus and heart and that there's lymph nodes there. So it's an incurable cancer at that stage but he said ‘It isn't terrible, but it's treatable’.”

In mid-May, Pauline started her chemotherapy. At that stage, her CA-125 test results came back double from the last one with a result of 6900 units/mL.

The main symptoms of ovarian cancer are fatigue, peeing more often and bloating. Pauline only experienced bloatedness after her diagnosis.

Due to the bloating, Pauline said she looked 'seven months pregnant'. The hospital removed four litres of fluids from her stomach.

“It became evident I was extremely ill. The first chemo was terrible. It was very hard to deal with and I was very scared at this point.”

“The treatment was six rounds of chemotherapy. I would have three cycles of chemotherapy and then they would scan me again to assess whether I was suitable for surgery.

“After the first cycle, I thought I would have never been able to do this six times.

“Halfway through the treatment they did the scan and the City Hospital came back to say that they decided they wouldn't give me the surgery because I was responding very well to the chemo. They were happy with how things were going.

“They were afraid of me developing any infections or even problems during surgery because as they told me at one point, it was five major surgeries rolled into one.”

After this decision by the City Hospital, Pauline and her husband sought the opinion of staff at Christi Hospital in Manchester.

The hospital agreed to perform the surgery on September 21 and she finished chemotherapy on November 21.

Pauline’s surgery was a success. All evidence of cancer, visible from the human eye, was removed. She still follows a treatment plan but she is back outside doing her usual activities.

Nowadays, her cancer is stable and Pauline admits that she never thought she would see the day where she would be saying she was 'glad to say that she is 60'.

“The problem with ovarian cancer is that symptoms are very subtle until the disease is advanced,” Pauline said.

“In hindsight, I realise I would have been sitting watching TV at night opening the button of my jeans. It wasn't until I was running to the bathroom frequently that I picked up the phone. I was often just putting that down to my age and menopause.

“The biggest problem for me is that there's no accurate screening mechanism for ovarian cancer. We have our mammograms, which we all go for and we have smear tests.

“We are aware of what to look out for in regards to breast cancer. We know how to check ourselves or at least keep an eye on her breasts.

“More must be done so that women are diagnosed at much earlier stages when the outcomes could be more promising from the outset,” said Pauline.

“Discussions must be had with women during their cervical smear exams as many women wrongly believe the smear test will pick up ovarian cancer. Opportunities like this should not be missed. This must change.”

Ovarian cancer is treatable if noticed early. Symptoms include bloating, pain or tenderness in the tummy area, feeling full quickly after waiting and an urgent need to pee. Other symptoms and advice are available on the NHS website or Target Ovarian Cancer charity.