Mortal And Strong - Scars of Gold - Charlotte W

In this episode we interview another beautiful human - Charlotte W. Charlotte is the latest Voice in our Scars of Gold campaign and talks to Dr Liz about how her diagnosis of cancer officially began at the age of 29 whilst 20 weeks pregnant. Charlotte had had pelvic pain since she was 15 and repeatedly dismissed as having IBS and even belittled for wasting GP time over her symptoms. When pregnant a routine ultrasound identified what was thought to be a a rare ovarian tumour, but after giving birth had further scans which found her to have a very rare cancer originating in the appendix; Pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP). This rare cancer occurs in only 3 people per million each year and is extremely slow growing. Despite having already spread within the abdomen the slow growing nature gave Charlotte some hope. However the type of treatment needed requires surgery to deliver heated intraperitoneal chemotherapy (known as the 'mother of all surgeries) with a hospital admission of 4-6 weeks after each round. 14 years on Charlotte has had four of these treatments and each time has to revisit the mentally challenging process of finding the strength to face this. Charlotte shares how she has been determined to find meaning with her life and provides more wonderful insights and strategies on how to come to terms with a life changing diagnosis.

Thank you to Charlotte for sharing her experience as part of the Scars of Gold campaign. Scars of Gold is a health awareness campaign sharing the voices of 100 women facing their mortality at a young age with life changing or incurable health conditions. Produced by the charity @mortalandstrong (No. 1209448)

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