November 2012 was a traumatic month for my girlfriend and I. In the weeks leading up to her diagnosis, Ellie became quite badly bloated around her waist. She was short of breath, and eating very little. She arranged a doctor's appointment for 14/11/12 to see if they could work out what was going on. That night, she asked me to come over, when I did she told me that it looked fairly certain she was pregnant. She had taken one pregnancy test at the doctor's and two at home; all three came back positive.

Understandably, this was a shock for both of us. I'm 22 and Ellie is 23; both of us are students and neither of us were wanting to have children for a good few years yet. Ellie has religiously been taking the pill for years, we had no idea how she could be pregnant.

On 15/11/12 I had to take Ellie to the hospital for an ultrasound. The nurses told us that she appeared to be around 18 weeks pregnant, that she had the appearance of a heavily pregnant woman, and that she would need a more thorough ultrasound "to see how far along [she was]". We both felt like our lives were falling apart around us. What if she was so far along in her pregnancy that she had to deliver the baby? We were completely distraught; this was not how Ellie wanted her first pregnancy to turn out.

After the longest 30 minutes of our lives, Ellie recieved her second ultrasound from a different nurse. We were told that there was definitely no baby (which I got the nurse to repeat about 20 times) but that there was something. A little while later we were shown to a consultant's room, where a doctor told us that Ellie appeared to have a large cyst in her abdomen. Ellie was very upset; on top of the horrible rollercoaster of the past few days, she had been looking forward to a trip to Walt Disney World this Christmas, which she knew would now not be possible.

On 16/11/12, Ellie's mum flew up from the south of England to take her home, so she could have her surgery with the support of her family nearby. They both got the train from Glasgow, and what felt like the longest week of my life began.

Ellie was admitted to hospital over the weekend, then had her operation to remove the cyst on 21/11/12. The surgeons removed the cyst, which was 20cm x 10cm in size, her left ovary, part of her right fallopian tube, a 10cm section of her bowel, and the omentum of her stomach.

On 23/11/12, I flew down to keep her company while she recovered in hospital. That was when she told me that the cyst had been a malignant germ cell tumour, and that she has the corresponding rare type of cancer.

Thankfully, all visible traces of the cancer were removed. However, Ellie is currently undergoing curative chemotherapy to ensure that nothing of the cancer is left. Unfortunately she will lose her hair as part of the chemotherapy, which she is finding hard to come to terms with. To help encourage her, and to show my support for her during this traumatic time, I have decided to shave my head and get a full head-to-toe body wax to raise money for Cancer Research UK.

If Ellie is going to lose her hair, then I will be hairless with her.

 

I'm getting my wax on the 20th of February. I'll get my head shaved some time before then.