A young woman has warned of the dangers of ignoring bloating — after her unusually inflated stomach turned out to be a sign of deadly ovarian cancer that had spread to her lungs.
Jenna Sirkiä, 25, only discovered the disease was wreaking havoc on her body by chance, thanks to a scan she underwent following a scooter accident.
Ms Sirkiä fell from the electric scooter and landed on her stomach, which she blamed for a surge in intense cramping that caused her to faint.
But an ultrasound revealed what appeared to be an orange-sized tumour within one of her ovaries.
As well as the mass, the scan discovered a cyst in her abdomen that had burst, which doctors said was responsible for her sudden collapse.
Two months after the ultrasound, Ms Sirkiä, who hails from Finland, received a call from the hospital confirming the devastating diagnosis — ovarian cancer that had spread to her abdomen.
‘[Doctors believed] it had been inside me for a while considering it was that big already,’ said Ms Sirkiä, a nursing home assistant.
‘I cried so much. I couldn’t believe that this was happening to me.’
Jenna Sirkiä, 25, wishes she’d visited the doctor for her bloating problems earlier
Jenna immediately began a four-month course of drug treatment to tackle the cancer, starting in September 2024.
She also had an operation to remove the tumour and one of her ovaries.
It was a gruelling process, made all the worse by her suffering an allergic reaction to the medication and having to switch drugs.
She was particularly devastated about losing her red hair.
‘It was a tough place [to be in] and [it] felt like the end of the world [at the time],’ she said. ‘But I’m happy with how well the treatments went.
‘[I had] a couple of days of slight fatigue but otherwise I was fine.’
She finished her treatment on New Year’s Eve 2024. But her battle isn’t over.
Doctors also took a scan of her lungs, which revealed another tumour, and she underwent surgery to remove the growth last week.
Of women diagnosed with stage one or two ovarian cancer, when the disease is confined to the organ, 93 per cent go on to survive for more than five years.
However, survival rates fall to 13 per cent in those diagnosed when their disease is advanced.
The nursing assistant said she found losing her hair particularly tough
‘I hope life smiles at me this year and there won’t be any more bad news,’ she said.
But the young woman is keeping her spirits up, hoping to return to work at the end of February after having been off for six months.
‘It’s been quite a journey but I survived,’ she said. ‘I’m proud of myself.’
Speaking of the early signs of her condition she said: ‘I never thought at any point that I was sick, I lived a normal life and was completely symptom-free the whole time.
‘Everything came as a surprise. Of course, I regret not going to the doctor earlier about the swelling in my stomach.
‘It’s lucky that I fell in the accident, otherwise this [might not] have been found and it [could] have been too late.
‘I hope life smiles at me this year and there won’t be any more bad news.’
In August last year, British researchers called for those with telltale signs of ovarian cancer to be fast-tracked for urgent investigations, after their studies revealed the symptoms can occur up to three years before diagnosis.
The experts said many GPs are under the wrong impression that only women in the advanced stages of ovarian cancer show any symptoms.
But their research showed that fast-tracking patients with problems like bloating and abdominal cramps led to significantly earlier diagnoses, when patients are far more likely to survive more than five years.
Over 4,000 women in the UK die from ovarian cancer each year, according to data from the charity Cancer research UK.
It says about one in 10 cases of ovarian cancer are preventable, with obesity being one of the leading risk factors.
The NHS says signs of ovarian cancer include experiencing problems like bloating, pain in the tummy area, a lack of appetite or feeling full quickly, an urge to urinate or needing to do so more often, frequently, about 12-or-more times a month.
Other potential signs include indigestion, constipation or diarrhoea, back pain, fatigue, losing weight without trying and bleeding from the vagina after the menopause.
