Woman, 33, battled ‘gluten intolerance’ for months – it turned out to be killer cancer that doesn’t respond to chemo
At 33 Emily Campbell never suspected her bloating issues would be anything other than digestive problems – let alone a sign of a type of cancer that kills 11 women in Britain every day.
Back in December 2022 the marketing expert sought medical help near home in Miami after noticing her belly was so bloated that she looked ‘about seven months pregnant’.
Medics said she was suffering from a gluten intolerance which was causing constipation, and she was under a lot of stress.
But when the bloating got so bad it affected her ability to walk, she demanded an ultrasound which revealed the real source was a large mass in her pelvic region.
A biopsy revealed the devastating truth – ovarian cancer, a disease that most commonly strikes women more than twice Ms Campbell’s age.
But it was only when she went under the knife to have the mass removed that just how far the cancer had spread was revealed.
The disease had migrated to multiple organs – including her colon and bladder.
‘I went into the surgery not knowing how much they were going to find or take,’ she said.
At 33 Emily Campbell never suspected her bloating issues were actually sign of cancer that kills 4,000 patients in Britain each year
Back in December 2022 the marketing expert sought medical help near home in Miami after noticing she looked about seven months pregnant
But when the bloating got so bad she started to have problems walking she demanded an ultrasound which revealed the real source was a large mass in her pelvic region which tuned out to be ovarian cancer
‘I remember waking up and asking…my husband was like; ‘Yeah they took everything’. My uterus was gone, ovaries gone, fallopian tubes gone, cervix gone. They took my appendix.’ she told The Mirror.
Tragically the result of the operation meant Ms Campbell was unable to have children.
Tests subsequently revealed the cancer was a specific type called lower grade borderline which is more common among women aged from 20 to 40.
This form of the disease has a higher overall survival rate, with 8 out of 10 women diagnosed before the age of 45 living for at least 10 years in the UK.
The overall survival rate for the disease is far lower, with only 3 out of 10 women living a decade after their diagnosis.
But lower grade borderline ovarian cancer doesn’t tend to respond well to chemotherapy, which means for women like Mrs Campbell, surgery tends to be the only option.
Mrs Campbell decided against chemotherapy choosing instead to focus on tests designed to track if the cancer has returned.
‘It’s blood work every single 90 days and a scan every six months. They can recur. They could come back in 10 years, 20 years,’ she said.
She recalled having to sign a waiver acknowledging that surgeons were unsure how much of her organs they might have to remove alongside the mass
When she awoke she found uterus was gone, ovaries gone, fallopian tubes gone, cervix hadto be removed
The disease kills 11 women on average every day in Britain, or 4,000 a year
She was also given a medication, originally designed for breast cancer patients, which aims to inhibit the female sex hormone oestrogen thought to have fuelled her cancer.
Mrs Campbell said learning this fact alarmed her.
‘It’s prescribed (to ovarian cancer patients) because it’s essentially an educated guess. These young women are getting these diagnoses and they’re losing their ability to have families and they’re not even getting a treatment tailored to them,’ she said.
This motivated Mrs Campbell and her husband Chris to launch ‘Not These Ovaries’ last January, a not-for-profit designed to help fund research for the subtype of ovarian cancer she had.
She has also raised $1.5million (£1.2million) for low-grade ovarian cancer research.
Just over 7,500 women in Britain are told they have ovarian cancer each year according to charity Cancer Research UK with 4,000 killed by the disease in the same period.
About one in 10 cases of ovarian cancer are estimated to preventable, with obesity being one of the leading causes of the disease.
The NHS says signs of ovarian cancer include experiencing problems like bloating, pain in the tummy area, a lack of appetite or feeling full quickly, an urge to urinate or needing to do so more often, frequently, about 12-or-more times a month.
Other potential signs include indigestion, constipation or diarrhoea, back pain, fatigue, losing weight without trying and bleeding from the vagina after the menopause.