It was a week before Christmas 2023. Siân Davies sat in a room at the community hospital in Maesteg near where she lived in Resolven. She was struggling to take in the devastating news that the consultant was telling her.
She had stage 3 ovarian cancer.
All she could hear at the time was stage 3. At that point the consultant didn’t mention any treatment options, and so Siân assumed the worst:
I thought it was terminal. There was no treatment as far as I was concerned, so obviously that’s the first thing that went through my mind.
Siân was 67 years old at the time. She’d worked as a shop assistant in the village for 22 years, before retiring at the age of 58 to look after her grandsons. Now in her late 60s, she and her husband Lyn were looking forward to a time of travel and adventure.
But in the autumn of 2023, she’d started to notice some symptoms. Her stomach wasn’t feeling right. She thought it might have been something to do with a hernia she had that caused reflux. At that point the doctor couldn’t feel anything in her stomach and gave her a different medication to try out for the reflux.
She went home, but things still weren’t right. She started to lose her appetite. Then one day whilst she was at the swimming pool, she noticed a feeling in her stomach. It was as if things were moving around. She went back to the doctor and this time she was really nervous. She knew it was more than her hernia, and she kept thinking about her mother and her cousin, both who’d had bowel cancer.
Sure enough the test results came back with something, and that’s when she found herself in that room listening to what she thought was a terminal diagnosis of ovarian cancer.
I had four days thinking that’s it. But then they told me that I would have treatment, and the hope came in. It made such a difference, as if a big weight had been lifted off me. I knew then that I could stay positive. I even managed to have a good Christmas.
2024 rolled in, and Siân’s treatment started with chemotherapy. But all the time, the fluid that she’d originally felt that day in the pool was increasing in her stomach. She could no longer eat or swallow, and she lost weight at a pace.
One morning I tried to swallow some porridge. I couldn’t. There was nowhere for it to go. I knew it was dangerous, and that if the fluid wasn’t drained I was going to choke. At that point, I thought I wouldn’t get to see 68.
When the fluid was drained at Singleton Hospital in Swansea, an astonishing 12 pints was removed. It was a turning point for Siân. She felt like her old self again, and her appetite instantly returned. She knew at that point that she could get through this. She had a strong support system in her husband and family and community, and she shared everything with them.
I think it’s when people don’t talk about it, it’s like a dirty secret. It’s very dangerous. It’s important to be open. Tell people that you have cancer. Tell them that you’re not feeling great.
In the summer of 2024, Siân went in for surgery. In her younger years, Siân had had endometriosis and as a result had had a hysterectomy at the age of 42, as well as one ovary and fallopian tube removed. The other tube and ovary were in good working order and so had been kept in to prevent an early menopause.
But it was in the remaining fallopian tube that the cancer developed and spread to her ovary and beyond. The operation to remove them was a success and chemotherapy resumed.
At the same time, she was tested for the BRCA 1 gene mutation, which can be linked with ovarian cancer. As far as she was aware, there weren’t any similar gynaecological cancers in her family, but she needed to be sure for her children’s sake.
The test revealed that she was indeed carrying the gene mutation, and her daughter and son are now waiting to find out if it has passed on to them.
Now, having just celebrated her 69th birthday, Siân is in a good place. She’s on a course of chemotherapy pills and regular infusions, but she’s feeling stronger every day and swims a mile and a half a week. She’s hoping at some point in the not too distant future, to revisit that dream she once had of travel and adventure with her husband.
I feel really lucky that it was caught at stage 3. I still have fear. Everyone does, because it can come back, especially with the gene mutation. But I notice everything in life so much more now. I just feel so blessed that I’m still here.
