Jessi What cancer were you diagnosed with? ovarian cancer (Sertoli-Leydig) What age were you diagnosed? 26 What has helped you to thrive? Since being diagnosed, I feel like a completely different person. It's impossible to understand unless you are confronting your own mortality head-on every day. This is terrifying but also freeing. I only concern myself with what's important to me - both in my career and with relationships - and I have zero time for other stress and anything that doesn't make me happy. Only advanced cancer patients TRULY know how to live life to the full I reckon! I also really want to tell my story and find it empowering and therapeutic to do so. I am lucky enough to have a distributed film coming out on the 24th September about cancer in lockdown called The Forgotten C. You can find out more about it on my Instagram - @my_chemo_romance. Jessi's Story I ended up in A&E aged 26 with suspected appendicitis on Christmas Eve 2018 and remember being so upset about missing out on festive drinks and family time the next day. Oh how that problem seems so small now! Appendicitis turned into a 12cm ovarian cyst; turned into an operation to remove the cyst and right ovary; turned into a benign tumour; turned into one of the rarest ovarian cancers there is, called Sertoli-Leydig. 0.5% of ovarian cancers are Sertoli-Leydig Cell Tumours (SLCTs) and only around 10% of SLCTs metastasize and advance past stage 1. It is all about the initial surgery to remove the tumour - sadly mine ruptured in the emergency operation meaning it spread into my upper abdomen. Fast forward to now, and it has returned twice, both times as liver mets. After the first time I had 5 day BEP chemotherapy, but that was unsuccessful, and it came back again 5 months after finishing. I'm now on a combination of Metformin and two hormone blocking drugs - Letrozole and a monthly injection called Leuprorelin acetate - which puts me in a medical menopause. I also take mistletoe extract and two homeopathy drugs prescribed to me by my NHS integrative oncologist at Royal London Hospital. This seems to be keeping all the tiny tumours stable - for now. But my cancer is aggressive, poorly differentiated and resistant to treatment, so I have to be realistic as to how long this will last. Manage Cookie Preferences