Amelia's discovery while reading in bed saved her from a cancer diagnosis

After 11 years with a contraceptive implant, Amelia Higgs expected some side effects when she had it removed so she could start a family.

The initial abdominal discomfort seemed normal. The pain that developed deep in her pelvis a few weeks later did not.

Then 34, she knew something wasn't right but didn't take action until she made an accidental discovery while lying in bed reading.

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"I just happened to put my hand on my abdomen, and I could feel a solid mass," she tells 9honey, "I was like, 'That's not supposed to be there.'"

Higgs' usual GP had no appointments available, so she took the first slot with a young male doctor she'd never seen before. She wanted answers, and fast.

The GP listened as she described her symptoms – pain, bloating – then examined her abdomen. When he got to her lower belly, his hands stilled.

He told Higgs, "I thought that you were just a young, slim woman complaining about bloating and that it wasn't anything to worry about … until I felt that."

He confessed her stomach felt like it would if she were four months pregnant (she wasn't) and ordered an ultrasound.

Have you got a story? Contact reporter Maddison Leach at mleach@nine.com.au

As soon as she left his office, Higgs called a women's imaging clinic and was told there was a six-week waitlist. 

She hung up, called another local clinic, and got an appointment in two days' time. One week later, she was back in the GP's office for her results. They weren't good.

"My GP said, 'You've got ovarian cysts, and I'm referring you to a gynaecological oncologist'. When I heard the word oncologist, that was the moment life as I knew it changed," Higgs says.

The gynaecological oncologist took one look at her scans and warned Higgs something was "seriously wrong". It might be cancer, but the only way to confirm was to operate.

Higgs would need surgery to remove both ovaries within a week, but even then she didn't understand just how serious the situation was.

Work was busy and she was nervous about taking a week off to recover. At least, she thought it would only be a week until her specialist corrected her.

"He was like, 'No, you'll need six weeks, minimum'. I had no concept of how intense and involved the entire process was going to be," Higgs admits.

Three weeks after that first GP appointment, she was wheeled into the operating room and cut open from her bellybutton to her pubic bone. 

Her ovaries, when surgeons removed them, were the size of tennis balls.

Eventually, the 34-year-old was diagnosed with a rare condition called Borderline Complex Ovarian Cysts, which was described to her as "the last step before ovarian cancer".

Ovarian cancer kills one woman every eight hours in AUstralia and is the most deadly of all gynaecological cancers.

"I was told by my doctors that if I had left it for another couple of months, or if it had gone undetected for another couple of months, it would have become ovarian cancer."

Recovery was brutal; Higgs was on heavy painkillers, couldn't drive for weeks, and went into early menopause because her body could no longer produce oestrogen.

Hormone replacement therapy took months of "mucking around" to get right, and even then she had to deal with side effects like fatigue, brain fog, and weight fluctuations.

"That [menopause] probably affected me more badly than the actual surgery itself," Higgs says, both physically and mentally.

It took about a year for her to work through all the anxiety and trauma with a psychologist.

"Your body heals really quickly, but psychologically, there's a lot of stuff to work through," she says, like her family plans.

Because Higgs needed surgery so urgently after her diagnosis, there was no time for fertility treatment. She would never have a biological child.

In fact, any pregnancy – even with a donor egg – could cause serious hormonal issues and eventually, she and her partner decided having children wasn't in their future.

"We're very fortunate that we've got friends and family with little people who we've really thrown ourselves into loving," Higgs says, "so that's a bit of a silver lining for me."

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The other 'silver lining' is Frocktober, the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation's (OCRF) annual fundraising campaign, which helped her talk about her journey without feeling pitied.

Higgs first took part in 2022, just three months after her surgery, and dressed up in 31 frocks through the month of October to raise funds and awareness for ovarian cancer.

Though she wasn't officially diagnosed with the disease,which kills over 1000 women each year, Higgs shudders to think how close she'd come.

This year will mark the third time she's taken part in Frocktober and she wants to keep sharing her story, in the hopes no other woman has to live it.

It was only by chance she caught her illness before it progressed into a full-blown ovarian cancer diagnosis, and Higgs urges all other Australians to be proactive about their reproductive health.

"Talking about women's health issues is the only way to change the stigma," she explains.

"It's so much better to be over cautious and look into it, than to ignore it and have it turn out to be something worse."

Register for the Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation's Frocktober today and use your wardrobe to help raise crucial funds and awareness for ovarian cancer research.

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