Jacinta Frawley should have spent her 59th birthday celebrating, but instead her life was turned upside down.
Frawley was a "classic busy mother" of two, a devoted wife and a psychotherapist who ran her own clinical practice.
"We had a very normal life," Frawley tells 9Honey. "I had also just started taking up running with a group of ladies and it was absolutely fabulous."
In the days leading up to her 59th birthday, Frawley felt puzzled when she started having trouble running due to swelling around her stomach.
"I went from not being able to run at all, to not being able to wear my jeans," she says. "My stomach just exploded. My waist literally expanded by over 10 centimetres over the space of three days.
"That was the first time I realised I was sick."
In a whirlwind few days, Frawley visited three different GPs and, on her birthday, was told she had ovarian cancer.
"I was told I had a 16 centimetre tumour," she says. "When you tell people that you had a 16 centimetre tumour they all say, 'that's big', and I agree, but I could never feel it."
Frawley naturally felt "shocked and upset" about the diagnosis, but she also felt like she was to blame.
"I felt like a fool," she says. "I felt like I should have known and I should have paid more attention. I felt probably somehow angry at myself that I should have known, which I now know is ludicrous."
Following the diagnosis, Frawley found out she had an incredibly aggressive type of cancer with doctor specialists estimating that it would have only started forming three months prior to her diagnosis.
Months earlier, Frawley had lost her father and a close uncle – she reflects on this difficult period, saying that she may have dismissed early symptoms of the cancer as grief.
"Cancer never turns up when you have time," she says. "I think I misdiagnosed some of the early symptoms – I was very tired, I thought I was grieving. I know look back and think, 'Oh, actually, that wasn't grief, that was probably the cancer starting.'"
"That was the hardest thing to grapple with. Cancer doesn't wait until you've got free time, It comes with lots and lots of other life events."
After seeing a specialist for an internal examination, Frawley was quickly faced with another very brutal reality.
"I'll never forget, [the doctor] actually recoiled and said, 'Oh, you've got a volcano in there.' He told me that it had already metastasized to the bowel and said that he wouldn't be able to operate. It was about management, not cure."
"That was shocking," she reflects. "I'll never forget all those sentences they just went: bang, bang, bang."
Frawley, who was waiting to receive a treatment plan before she told her children, asked the specialist for a prognosis to which he said he couldn't give her one.
"I told him that we hadn't told family yet because we were waiting for a treatment plan. And he said, 'tell everyone because you'll need all the support you can get.'"
Frawley had previously mentioned that her son was living overseas, and the doctor prompted her to call him.
"I replied saying, 'Oh it's okay, he'll be back at Christmas'. And he said, 'You've got aggressive cancer. Christmas is too long. He needs to come now.'"
"That was shocking to us as well because that was only September and Christmas was four months away."
However things turned around for Frawley and, thankfully, she responded incredibly well to several rounds of chemotherapy and had very successful results from surgery.
Frawley, who has the BRCA 1 gene, also attributes the success of her recovery to genetic testing which helped her receive specialised treatment.
All up, her treatment took almost two and a half years.
"Now I am really well. I'm probably a little bit too overweight," she jokes. "I wish I hadn't have enjoyed eating so much when I got better. But my life is fantastic. I'm back working. I can look after the family. I can exercise."
Frawley is now living as an ovarian cancer survivor and an advocate for other women living with the challenging condition, recently completing the gruelling 64km Larapinta trek in the Northern Territory helping to raise over $160,000 for gynae cancer research.
"I really do take in every minute now and appreciate that time is incredibly precious. I know it's a cliché, but it's true."
Due to non-specific symptoms and a lack of accurate testing to identify the disease at an early stage, most women are diagnosed when ovarian cancer is advanced.
While the BRCA gene type is present in all women, certain mutations in these genes increase the likelihood of developing cancer. Approximately 25% of women diagnosed with ovarian cancer will have a BRCA mutation. Genetic testing can drastically help to prevent and provide specialised treatment for ovarian cancer.
Source: honey.nine.com.au
