A GP had a feeling something wasn't right with her after she didn't get her period after coming off the contraceptive pill for the first time in 16 years.
UK-based GP Charlotte Badescu and her hospital doctor partner, John, wed in 2021 and decided to start a family. After stopping the pill, she got no period and any pregnancy test she took showed up as negative.
The 32-year-old told the ECHO: "Even as a GP, I was extremely confused and obviously anxious about what was going on. I knew it can be normal not to have periods for up to a few months after stopping the pill, so I was trying to reassure myself that I'm hopefully just in that group of women where it's normal, but I had this underlying feeling of, 'What if there's something going on?'"
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Her GP made her take some blood tests, which showed "extremely high" hormone levels.
Charlotte was then sent for a pelvic ultrasound. She "knew immediately that something wasn't right" when the doctors face dropped.
The next day she was told that there was a 16cm mass occupying most of her pelvis, and it looked "malignant."
Charlotte said: "I'd been trying for a baby. I wasn't expecting that something else would be there in my pelvis."
Charlotte was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, which she said stunned her.
"It took me a while to come to terms with the diagnosis because I really hadn't felt unwell previously. I was still extremely active, working, hadn't really noticed much going on. Work was obviously very stressful because of the pandemic, so I think any very minor symptoms that I may have had, I had to put down to stress. It really was not what I was expecting at all, even as a doctor."
Charlotte was left with a choice to make between taking out her ovaries and womb, or just removing the ovary with the tumour and risking its return.
She stressed that she would be devastated not to be a mum. Charlotte decided to have her right ovary only removed.
She tried IVF in February last year so she could freeze embryos but the results were poor, however, Charlotte fell pregnant five months ago, for which she was overjoyed.
"It's such a miracle that it has happened, but I can't just relax and enjoy the pregnancy as much as I would have liked had I just fallen pregnant without having cancer and knowing that my future will be filled with monitoring and potentially more treatment," she said.
Caught early in stage one like Charlotte, 93% of people with ovarian cancer survive five years or more after diagnosis. This falls to 13% when ovarian cancer is diagnosed at later stages.
Charlotte gave credit to her supportive GP and oncologist, as well as to her husband, family and therapist.
She said: "I'm extremely empathic now towards anyone who's going through this journey or might have a relative going through this journey, both from a cancer and a fertility point of view, so that's why I'm working to raise more awareness, to support people further and to change guidelines."
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