Heavy menstruation could be ovarian cancer; see case – 05/17/2023 – Balance

Kelly Pendry has terminal cancer and has not been diagnosed for several years.

She lives in Ewloe, in the county of Flintshire (West Wales), is 42 years old and is the mother of two children.

In 2021, she was diagnosed with uterine leiomyosarcoma. But her initial symptoms — “heavy, prolonged menstrual periods” and “a lot of pain” — began in 2016.

She wonders if things would be different if she had been diagnosed more quickly.

Leiomyosarcoma is a rare type of cancer. The tumor is responsible for less than 5% of malignant tumors of the uterus, according to researchers.

In Brazil, excluding non-melanoma skin tumors, cervical cancer is the third most common type of cancer among women.

Pendry says that when she first described her symptoms to her doctor, she was told that “the body really takes time to normalize. [depois da gravidez]”.

She says she was advised to take birth control pills or have an IUD inserted. On another occasion, she received a prescription for antidepressants.

“I felt like a drama queen,” she says. “I felt like I was overreacting, like ‘this is kind of in my head, is that stupid?'”

But Pendry’s condition was debilitating.

“There were days when I writhed in pain,” she recalls. “On days when I wasn’t bleeding, [a dor] it was smaller. I was gaining weight without explanation. I had this stomach, really, really bloated.”

‘How are you holding up?’

It wasn’t until April 2020 that a local general practitioner – who Pendry describes as a “hero” – agreed that something was wrong after he noticed that there were lumps in his abdomen.

“For the first time, someone confirmed something,” she says. “He asked ‘how are you holding up?’ I replied ‘I’m not’.”

In November 2020, Kelly Pendry was diagnosed with benign fibroids. The doctors recommended to her that a hysterectomy would be the best course of action, but the pandemic meant that her follow-up appointments were continually postponed and the surgery never took place.

As of June 2021, Pendry was bleeding every day and “looked like she was nine months pregnant”.

It was around this time that a doctor first mentioned the possibility of a sarcoma, but the diagnosis would only come in November 2021, after a lung biopsy.

Around this time, Pendry discovered that his cancer was already stage four and terminal. “A nurse told me not to make plans for Christmas,” she recalls.

Pendry was referred to an oncologist at the Clatterbridge Cancer Center in Liverpool, England. The doctor said that she would do her best to treat her cancer, even though it was incurable.

“He asked us what we wanted and we said ‘time’. As much time as humanly possible,” she says.

‘Strenuous’ chemotherapy

“I said ‘I can’t think about not being there for the achievements [das crianças]’ – silly things, like first boyfriends, girlfriends, graduations. At the time, I thought I wouldn’t get to see them at 10 years old.”

But six aggressive and “exhausting” rounds of chemotherapy bought her more time.

Almost a year after the end of treatment, Pendry still feels side effects from hormone inhibitors, such as tiredness, pain and hot flashes. But she says “nothing compares” to the pain she felt before.

And the fact remains that Pendry still has stage four terminal cancer.

“We had stability for a year,” according to her. “But we know that this could just change and very quickly.”

Pendry wants a hysterectomy, but says that option “is no longer available. It appears that since my cancer is stage four, surgery is not used to prolong life.”

Kelly Pendry’s husband, Michael, hopes to raise £50,000 (approximately R$ 310,000) to pay for the surgery in the United States. “There, surgery is a treatment,” he says.

Pendry doesn’t want to criticize the “wonderful NHS” (British public health service), but feels it has been “taken away from avenues that seem to be available in other countries”.

Michael will soon be making a 290km run from Ewloe to Hanham, near Bristol, England, trying to raise the necessary funds. He described training for the mission as cathartic.

‘I just cried while running’

“If I let things pile up on top of me… I can run and feel better about it,” he says.

“Yesterday it felt like a ton of bricks hitting me,” recalls Michael. “I just cried while running. But I felt better afterwards.”

Kelly Pendry is realistic about what the future might hold for her, even with the surgery.

“We know they can take everything and it can come back, we know that,” she said. “We just want the kids to know that we’ve tried everything we can. I think it will bring them a lot of comfort.”

Pendry hopes sharing her experience will help others as well. She says she hopes her story “reaches out to someone in the early stages and makes them say ‘I want more tests or I’d like to get a referral’.”

“We’re talking about women’s health, menopause, periods,” she adds. “My hope is that it will get better.”

In a statement, the Board of Health at Betsi Cadwaladr University in Wales said: “We are sorry to hear of Ms Pendry’s experience and would advise her to contact her GP, who is a contract practitioner of the board of health, so that your concerns can be investigated”.

The Clatterbridge Cancer Center in Liverpool says it cannot comment on specific patients, but adds: “With advanced cancer that has spread to other parts of the body, treatments such as chemotherapy targeting cancerous cells throughout the body will generally be more effective than the surgery”.

“We work together with the surgical teams in our region. If the surgery is likely to be beneficial, it will be offered, even for incurable cancer”, continues the Center.

“We fully understand how difficult it can be to live with late-stage cancer, and we encourage Kelly to speak with her clinical team if she has any concerns.”

This text was published here