Confronting ovarian cancer

It was as if the world had been drained of all noise. When I first heard that sentence, “you have cancer”, everything went silent. I barely remember that time, except for the feeling of numbness the words left in their wake.

My mum was in the room with me at the time and I remember looking at her with tears in my eyes. She was beside herself in shock. “They must have the wrong person,” I thought. You never think that cancer could happen to you, especially not at the age of 24. But it can, to anyone at any age. Cancer doesn’t discriminate.

When we got home, I had to tell my dad, siblings and the rest of my family. They didn’t take it well. Cancer doesn’t just affect you, it affects everyone around you as well.

Despite being told what chemotherapy was like, I didn’t know what to expect and feared the unknown. I’m now on my third round of chemo in four years and it’s been really tough. Every day can be a struggle, with side effects like nausea, fatigue and chemo brain. Sometimes I need to bargain with myself just to put one foot in front of the other.

It can be such a lonely and isolating journey. You are left with this body that you can’t trust, which doesn’t function like it used to. You can’t help but question after every review and every scan – is the cancer back? My cancer has returned twice. It’s like walking around with a ticking time bomb ready to explode at any moment, but you still have to act normally and live with this every day.