Doctors completely misinterpreted the bloated ‘baby bump’: British woman thinks she is pregnant, but she had cancer

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She had to go to the toilet more often, had a bloated stomach and a feeling of fullness. The British Emma College (24) decided to have her complaints investigated in February 2022. The doctors’ diagnosis: Emma is pregnant. However, several pregnancy tests were negative.

A little later, the young woman ended up in hospital due to severe pain, according to the English ‘Durham Magazine’. There the doctors discovered the real reason for the symptoms. A huge tumor was growing in her stomach. The subsequent biopsy of the 30 centimeter wide mass confirmed the College’s worst fears: it was ovarian cancer.

“I always thought only women over 50 would get that.”

In the months leading up to her diagnosis, College had Googled her symptoms several times because she had a strange foreign body sensation in her stomach when she lay down. “It felt like I was lying on a giant watermelon.” During her research, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer several times: “But I always thought that only women over 50 would get it,” she says. “I thought the stomach pain could be caused by irritable bowel syndrome or a food allergy.”

After the diagnosis, doctors discovered that College’s tumor had already grown into her stomach and dented her kidney. “No other organs were visible on the ultrasound. Everything was covered by the tumor.”

A fifteen-hour operation followed, during which doctors carefully cut away the tumor and separated it from the tissue. With success: the surgeons were able to completely remove the ulcer and removed the affected ovaries, spleen, appendix and parts of the colon. A year ago, College finally had the last of six blocks of chemotherapy. Today she is cancer free.

No possibility of early detection

Every year, about 600 women in Switzerland develop ovarian cancer, as the Swiss Cancer League writes on its website. Any woman can get ovarian cancer; Research has not yet been able to identify modifiable factors that contribute to the development of ovarian cancer.

The young British woman wants to use her story to encourage other women to pay attention to the symptoms of ovarian cancer – especially because it is impossible to detect this disease early. “I want to make sure that everyone knows the symptoms of this form of cancer,” says the Brit.

Source: Blick