Woman diagnosed with ovarian cancer after symptoms were put down to menopause

Amanda Davies had symptoms including extreme tiredness, painful periods and swelling. Credit: Media Wales

A woman who was told her symptoms were caused by menopause discovered she actually had cancer.

Amanda Davies, who was 42 at the time, started experiencing symptoms and changes to her body that doctors said were likely to be symptoms of perimenopause.

These symptoms included extreme tiredness, painful periods and swelling. But, she thought there was more to it than the menopause.The now 48-year-old from Neyland in Pembrokeshire said: "I started getting stomach problems, feeling bloated, lots of IBS symptoms, I thought there is something more to it. I had massive pains to the point I would have to come home from work. Severe bloating. I was constantly going to the toilet to change, it was awful to think people were watching me walk across the corridor in work.

Amanda also lives with a congenital heart condition Credit: Media Wales

"I constantly felt the need to be eating something. But I wouldn't be able to finish my food. I would eat as much as I could then an hour later I would be hungry again. I was going to the toilet more than usual, but I didn't see it as a pattern until afterwards. At my time of the month I went up two dress sizes and I would come back down.She continued: "I kept going back and forth to the doctors saying I am struggling with my time of the month, they said you are probably peri-menopausal. It was 'it's your age, it's stress, it's your job'. I didn't see the same doctor each time, so they didn't pick up how many times I was going there."

After 18 months, Amanda - who lives with a congenital heart condition - was recommended by her GP to go and see her cardiologist about the problems she was experiencing."I was really worried it was my heart," she said.

In May 2016, her cardiologist performed an ultrasound on her heart. She said: "He was poker faced. He said I want you to take these water tablets and come back in a month.

"I started taking the water tables and I was severely sick. I could not stop being sick. I phoned our GP straight away they said I will keep the practice open to see you. He felt my stomach and he said 'I think I can feel something, I think you have a blocked bowel'. We went to A&E, we were there for hours, and they gave me a couple of different medications to stop the sickness.She added: "They started doing scans, they said you have the doctor to thank for this - my cardiologist had put on my notes to have urgent scans, because he knew there was something wrong. Then at 3am that morning, they told me it was a cancerous mass. A stage three tumour."Amanda was referred to the oncology team in Swansea where she was told she had a low grade serous ovarian cancer.

She was told this type of mass starts out very slow growing and can go undetected for years until later stages when it becomes more aggressive."I was told I had six to 12 months without treatment. No one with my heart condition had had chemotherapy before but they were willing to treat me if I wanted to try."Amanda decided to go for the chemotherapy treatment despite the unknown risks of having chemo with her heart condition. The chemo was successful and was followed up by a full hysterectomy in February 2017."My nan died of ovarian cancer in 1999, I was tested to see if it was genetic but my nan was not my genetic link. It was hard for my mother. Her mother died of cancer and her daughter had the same cancer that killed her mother."She added: "Chemo is hard, probably one of the hardest things you will ever do. I remember my biology teacher said chemotherapy is the closest you can come to being poisoned without dying. I had anaphylactic shock with the first session.

"It was the rate it was going into my body, they had to reduce the speed of the drip by half. It was an unknown test because of the heart condition. Instead of the normal sessions where people would have a day there then go back in three weeks, they had to do it at a lower dosage over a longer period of time."

Fortunately, Amanda's hysterectomy went well, however six months later, Amanda suffered an embolism and went into stage four heart failure. "I nearly died in A&E, all the family were called."Amanda was treated with warfarin to move the clot and eventually needed an operation on her heart to replace a valve - which was her third heart operation in her lifetime. "It would not have happened if I had not had the chemotherapy."She feels extremely grateful to the NHS for the treatment she has received over the years for both her heart and cancer. Adding: "They have saved my life more than once. I feel really privileged to get up in the morning."