Vesna, who asked to go by her first name only for this story, had been used to waking up with a flat stomach. Then the bloating started, and her stomach wasn’t flat in the morning anymore. “It was kind of protruding out,” she told Healthline.
Her gynecologist thought that she likely had a urinary tract infection.
But Vesna was certain that wasn’t it.
“I said, ‘Can you do an internal sonogram?’ and she said, ‘No, no, no,’” Vesna recalled, “and she proceeded to tell me that she was going on vacation with her kids, so she was picking them up from school in 20 minutes.”
Vesna left her gynecologist’s office feeling dismissed, without any answers but sure that something was wrong.
When she drove by her primary care doctor’s office a few weeks later, she decided to make an impromptu visit. The receptionist told her that no doctors were available to see her then, but something in Vesna pushed her to stay.
“I said, if I don’t advocate right now for myself, I know I’m going to let this go. So I pointed at a chair — this is so unlike my character — and said, ‘I’m going to sit right in that chair until somebody sees me,’” Vesna said.
“That was my turning point. That moment right there was what saved my life,” she added.
A physician’s assistant agreed to give Vesna an exam. After palpating her abdomen, they sent her across the street for imaging tests.
Vesna learned that she had a cyst in her abdomen the size of a seedless watermelon.
When a surgeon removed the cyst, they found both stage 1 ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer inside.
Now Vesna encourages others to listen to their bodies, advocate for the care they need, and if they don’t feel confident in a diagnosis, get a second opinion.
“No one, not even the best doctors in the world, knows your body like you know your body,” Vesna said, “and your body gives you signs by pain, by discomfort. Listen to it.”
