One woman's survival story

Amy Quinn (23) still vividly remembers coming round from the operation to be told that her ovaries and fallopian tubes had been removed.

At just 19 years of age, Amy, from Springburn in Glasgow, was also told the frightening news that she had stage 3 ovarian cancer.

She said: “I was in terrible shock when I woke up that day.

“I had been feeling pretty numb until then but that was the worst day ever.

“The cancer didn’t bother me so much, I was more upset about the fact that I wouldn’t be able to have my own children.

“Without my ovaries I’m infertile. I also had six months of chemotherapy which has affected my womb.”

Brave Amy has been in remission for three years now and she’s slowly coming to terms with her situation.

She has returned to work as a sales advisor for an energy company and she feels grateful every day that she has made a recovery from this terrible illness.

Amy was having terrible stomach cramps for a few months before she visited her GP for the first time but she was told that it was probably just bad period pain.

She returned to her GP five months later and asked for an ultrasound scan to be carried out to give her peace of mind.

This scan showed a small cyst on her ovary and a biopsy was taken and sent to the laboratory.

Amy said: “The biopsy showed something ‘unusual’ but I think the doctors still thought it was unlikely that I had cancer because I was so young.

“A few weeks later I got a phone call asking me to come in and see them and to bring someone with me.

“I suspected it was going to be bad news and they told me I had cancer.”

Amy had exploratory surgery on New Year’s Eve 2012 and the surgeon discovered that her ovarian cancer was at stage 3, which means it had spread outside the pelvis into the abdominal cavity.

He removed her ovaries, fallopian tubes, part of her pelvic floor and her appendix in order to save her life.

Amy received her treatment at The Teenage Cancer Trust at The Beatson and she says that made it all much
easier because she could mix with other people her own age.

She said: “It is an awesome place and it really took my mind off being ill.”