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Cancer survivor puts her story on film to help other young women
Laura Moses, who was diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer in 2016, wants to warn young women like her to look out for symptoms
September 21, 2018 16:31
Laura Moses, who was diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer in 2016, wants to warn young women like her to look out for symptoms
September 21, 2018 16:31A teacher from north London has made a series of videos to alert women to the symptoms of gynaecological cancers, and to answer some of their fears and questions.
Laura Moses was 27 when she was diagnosed with Stage 3 ovarian cancer, in June 2016, a year after discovering that she carried the mutated BRCA gene, which is prevalent among Ashkenazi women.
She has been free from cancer for two years, after treatment at the Royal Marsden Hospital, and raised £18,000 for the hospital some of which has gone towards the making of the videos.
She said that when she was diagnosed, she felt though she were “the youngest person to have ever gone through this. Doctors previously told me I was too young to have ovarian cancer. But the reality is cancer doesn’t discriminate and it can happen at any age”. She knows that because of the BRCA mutation, the cancer is statistically more likely to return.
To prevent other women feeling isolated and scared by the unknown, and also to help her throughout her own journey, she created a blog during her treatment called ‘Finding Cyril’, where she documented her experiences.
She describes the hospital as “her second family.” She said, “When I heard from my consultant and my nurse that the money I’d raised could go to making a video I thought it was such an amazing thing. You get lots of information to read about being young and having ovarian cancer but no videos. I thought it was a great idea to have just a few women talking together, with nothing to read, you just have to watch it for a few minutes. I think it’s so powerful as you’re learning from three other young women.
“I hope that someone else going through cancer can watch the video can think, ‘I can ask this person for this and this person for this’. For example, if you’re scared about the surgery, there’s a bit in the film where one girl tells you what it’s going to feel like when you wake up. We all said that chemo was almost nicer to us than we thought it would be.
“Hopefully, through these videos, people will have something to refer to. I want younger people to know what they are facing.
“At the Moment I have three monthly scans, as what happened to me was so rare. This way, I know that if they pick it up it will be picked up so early. I’m hopeful that when I hit that three years cancer free, I can have a double mastectomy as I am also at higher risk of developing breast cancer.”
The last of the videos sees the women asking members of the public what they know about gynaecological cancers.
“There are lots of women that didn’t know what a smear test is. That’s why what the Royal Marsden have done is amazing. I think that they’ve tapped into something which I wanted to support. I was to keep raising money for them because they are at the front line of so many things.
“I hope that these videos can be shared on social media and teach people about symptoms and I am going to do what I can to make sure that people know that if I had these, it could happen to them. Girls need to know that sometimes symptoms are not ok. That’s what these videos do.”
September is Gynae Cancer Awareness month, but Ms Moses hopes they will be shared throughout the year.
She is now back at work as a primary school teacher at a school in Hertfordshire, where she specialises in modern languages.As well as her day job, she says that she wants to keep blogging and making films like these videos.
“The videos are something that I want to keep sharing. I think if I had watched these videos, I would have loved it. You can learn so much from these girls”.
The link to Laura's films can be found here.
