A YOUNG woman has told how doctors dismissed her painful symptoms as teenage grumpiness - and failed to spot that she had ovarian cancer.

When the cancer was eventually diagnosed, Amy Quinn had to undergo extensive surgery which means she will never be able to have children.

Miss Quinn, now 20, sought medical help after feeling tired and suffering constant pain in her left side two years ago when she was 18.

But it took a year for doctors to diagnose a rare and aggressive form of ovarian cancer which had spread so much she needed to have her ovaries, fallopian tubes and appendix removed. As well as leaving her infertile, this meant that she went through the menopause at 19.

Recalling her struggle to have her symptoms taken seriously, she said: "It wasn't easy convincing anyone I was ill. I had a pain in my left side that never seemed to go away.

"I also felt tired all the time and started to give up things that I'd always loved, like dancing and musical theatre. I went to the doctor and explained but she dismissed me as being a grumpy teenager."

After five visits, her GP conceded she might have a cyst, which appeared to be confirmed by a scan. Because of the doctor's lack of concern about her symptoms, Miss Quinn was marked down as non-urgent and waited eight months for an operation.

By the time it came round in November last year, she felt worse than ever. "I told the surgeon I had concerns, and for the first time someone listened to me,' she said. 'This conversation may have saved my life."

Afterwards, the surgeon explained that he had removed the cyst but had also sent some other tissue for testing. A few weeks later she was called for an urgent scan.

Miss Quinn, a business student, said: "I said to my parents, 'I think I have cancer', but they thought I was being dramatic. But I just knew it - you know when you're not well.

"The only words I remember the surgeon saying were, 'It's cancer'. I don't remember the rest of the meeting. I couldn't speak and I felt numb. How could this be happening to me? I was 19 and scared."

Surgery showed she had ovarian low-grade serous carcinoma, a rare form of the disease, which had spread so much that her ovaries, fallopian tubes and appendix had to be removed.

"It felt horrible to suddenly be infertile," said Miss Quinn. "I had always wanted to have a family one day and didn't have time to save any eggs because my ovaries had been removed so suddenly. I remember just lying in the ward, crying.

"I can never conceive a child, which still hurts me. I also started my menopause at just 19, something else my friends wouldn't understand."

In February, Miss Quinn, who lives in Glasgow, began six months of chemotherapy. "I became very sick and fragile and a month later, I had no hair," she said.

Miss Quinn has now finished her treatment. She is in remission and has returned to university.

She believes that had she been older, her symptoms would have been taken more seriously and she would have been tested for cancer.

"I remember my doctor saying I was too young to have the test," she said.

A report released by the Teenage Cancer Trust this week shows that more than a third of young people with cancer are diagnosed through admission to accident and emergency - nearly three times the number of adults diagnosed in this way.

Of these young people, more than a quarter had already been to see their GP with cancer symptoms.

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