I've been following your journey as I've had same kind of symptoms back and forward to doctors, it's taken 5 weeks just to get an appointment for bloods, they have come back raised levels at 78. So only now are they referring me on the 2 week pathway. It's taken so long even to get to this.

How did your appointment go on the 1st? Hope it went well

Hi Jo22Jo,

Thanks for replying to my post - hope you're doing okay, how have your symptoms been since getting sent for bloods and being referred on the pathway?

My meeting on the 1st went really well, the consultant showed me the MRI images and the mass I have is very large, putting pressure on my bowel and bladder, and its very close to my spine - the kind of cancer gynae have said I could have is rare, I basically have a large teratoma (dermoid cyst) and around 1-2% of these become malignant and the surgeon can count on one hand the malignant ones he has seen during his career (so fingers crossed im in the majority and this is also benign) - my bloods are elevated and as such they need to treat this like it was cancer. I would have been in for surgery next week for a laparotomy of right ovary and cyst along with a washing and assessment of my other organs but someone never referred me for a CT Scan of my chest and abdomen to assist with staging so the surgery has been delayed only by a week or so (hopefully). I am priority for surgery and just by luck I managed to get a CT Scan cancellation on the 2nd so all the boxes have been ticked now and my surgery should go to plan. 

I am feeling optimistic about the outcome now, the surgeon was absolutely lovely and wasn't phased by this at all, he isnt jumping the gun to cancer at all, right now its a lump that needs to come out and if biopsy comes back malignant then we will cross that bridge if we come to it - once you've had any necessary testing and actually get to speak to someone who specialises in this field then i'm sure you'll be feeling good like I am right now and your mind will be put to rest, I found waiting for MRI appointments, ultrasounds etc was the most stressful but now i know the plan for me I'm just ready for this mass to be removed and to start getting on with my life again. 

I'm here if you ever need to talk about your experiences - I'm not an expert but I've been in the initial shock of it and it's good to have someone there who's went through something similar. (Hope my long message didn't bore you haha) xx

Ah that's amazing news Catherine. Such a good attitude too. I hope your surgery all goes ahead as planned. I feel like it's been such a long wait for me to get to this point but after my markers came back at 80 yesterday they suddenly seem panicked into referring me on the pathway so hopefully I don't have too long to wait. But another spanner in the works is I'm in early pregnancy as well, so I'm struggling to get excited about that with this health scare looming over me 

Thanks for getting back to me, your posts have been so detailed and helpful so far, it's really reassuring x

Ah that's amazing news Catherine. Such a good attitude too. I hope your surgery all goes ahead as planned. I feel like it's been such a long wait for me to get to this point but after my markers came back at 80 yesterday they suddenly seem panicked into referring me on the pathway so hopefully I don't have too long to wait. But another spanner in the works is I'm in early pregnancy as well, so I'm struggling to get excited about that with this health scare looming over me 

Thanks for getting back to me, your posts have been so detailed and helpful so far, it's really reassuring x