A woman who put her stomach ache down to the "anxiety" of her break-up was diagnosed with ovarian cancer - aged 19.
Storm Reveley, 22, had just split from her ex-partner when she started suddenly experiencing stomach pains.
At first she put down her pain and loss of appetite down the "anxiety" because of the break-up before trying to cut out dairy in case she was lactose intolerant.
But when Storm started to get bloated, feel lightheaded, experiencing painful bladder and abnormal bowel movements she went to see her doctor.
They originally thought she might have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) but told her to come back if her pain continued.
Storm Reveley, 22, had just split from her ex-partner when she started suddenly experiencing stomach pains.
At first she put down her pain and loss of appetite down the "anxiety" because of the break-up before trying to cut out dairy in case she was lactose intolerant.
But when Storm started to get bloated, feel lightheaded, experiencing painful bladder and abnormal bowel movements she went to see her doctor.
They originally thought she might have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) but told her to come back if her pain continued.
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FunTranscript
00:00Because of this lack of appetite and everything, I decided to go to the doctors and they started
00:12to get me checked out. So they ran some blood tests, checked me for any intolerances, they
00:19checked my vitamins and minerals and inflammation as well. It came up that I had inflammation
00:25and I was really low on all my vitamins and minerals, but I didn't have any intolerances,
00:32so I wasn't celiac, I wasn't lactose intolerant. But yeah, these bloods, they were unsure of
00:39why I was low on vitamins and everything like that. So, in the meantime, obviously more
00:47time had passed. Because of the lack of appetite, I started to lose a lot of weight over a short
00:52period of time and yeah, kept going back to the doctors and was just kind of under
01:02investigation, really like trying to figure out what was wrong with me. They then thought
01:09that it could be inflammatory bowel disease, I think it was, and they sent me, referred
01:17me for a colonoscopy. In the meantime, I had gotten a lot worse, the pain was getting
01:25a lot worse as well and I started to feel dizzy all the time, I was getting this really
01:33weird feeling where I'd feel like I was walking into cold water all the time, so I'd get like
01:39a cold water shock that would kind of take my breath away. This really freaked me out,
01:46I was getting heart palpitations as well and it just wasn't pleasant. A couple of weeks
01:54before they found my tumour, I started to get really bloated as well and I started to
02:00feel, when I needed to go to the toilet, my bladder was so painful, which obviously wasn't
02:10a normal thing for me and I needed to get up like three, four times in the night, which
02:15also wasn't normal for me personally. And then also a couple of days before my tumour
02:22was found, I was getting night sweats as well, which then made my mum say, look, we need
02:29to go back to the doctors. So I went back to the doctors, but in the meantime, when
02:35I was at college, I got really severe abdominal pain and it basically caused me to almost
02:43pass out with this pain. College did all the protocols and everything and called 111 and
02:52because it was COVID, it was the first time that anyone had actually felt my tummy to
02:57see if they could feel anything. But the lady felt my tummy and she said that she could
03:05feel a mass in my stomach. So yeah, so then she referred me through to gynaecology and
03:16I had a couple of like ultrasound scans and everything. And yeah, they wanted me to come
03:27back the next day for another scan and they then admitted me into hospital that day. All
03:34in the meantime, like the pain was really bad. Every time I sat down, it was really painful
03:41and yeah, just wasn't pleasant. And yeah, so then I went into hospital, was due to have an MRI scan,
03:52but when I was in hospital, I did start to go a little bit like showing signs of sepsis. So
04:00the consultant wanted to operate on me straight away, which I'm so glad that he did. And they
04:09thought originally that it was a twisting ovarian cyst. So they prepped me for like keyhole surgery,
04:17et cetera, and said that it was going to be like about an hour. And then when they took me in,
04:25they realised that it actually wasn't. It was a tumour and they had to get all the different
04:30teams in, which I'm so grateful for. I'm so grateful for the NHS and all the consultants,
04:37everyone who helped me out on that day and throughout my treatment and everything. But
04:46yeah, so I had the surgery and then they biopsied it and it came through that it was
04:52a cancerous germ cell tumour. So yeah, that's kind of the story of my symptoms.