Dawn Willis, 58, showed symptoms for a year but thinking it was just the menopause, she delayed seeing a doctor. Now, she is warning people who experience similar symptoms to visit a doctor as soon as possible.
Dawn Willis is now urging others to promptly check any unusual signs after she initially mistook her symptoms for menopause.
Dawn, 58, experienced vaginal bleeding for about a year and attributed it to hormonal changes — until a swollen stomach prompted her family to persuade her to visit the GP. Tragically, it turned out she had advanced womb (uterine) cancer.
Now in remission, the ex-teaching assistant from Canterbury, Kent, is determined to raise awareness and is speaking out in the hope of “saving someone’s life”. The NHS states that the main symptoms of uterine (womb) cancer are vaginal bleeding between periods, bleeding or spotting from the vagina after menopause, and a change in vaginal discharge.
Dawn expressed her frustration, saying: “I was so angry with myself when I got the diagnosis as I had ignored the symptoms. So much happens to your body during the menopause that I thought the bleeding was normal. But then my belly became swollen and my family told me to get checked out.
“I’m really glad they did because I was diagnosed with advanced womb cancer. If I had waited even just a couple more months, I don’t think I’d be here today.” Always the first one to advise people to go and see a doctor, Dawn doesn’t know why she left her own symptoms alone for so long and is “so angry at myself for ignoring these signs.”
After grappling with the initial shock of her diagnosis, Surrey Live reports that Dawn focused all her energy on recovery. She shared: “When they told me that it wasn’t terminal, I thought, ‘Right, I’m going to beat this.’ I love my life. I love my husband Mark, who I have been with since we were 16. I wasn’t ready to go anywhere. Cancer wasn’t going to beat me.”
Post her initial diagnosis in March 2017, Dawn endured a year of rigorous treatment and was declared in remission by March 2018, reaching the milestone of being officially cancer-free by March 2022. However, she faced a new challenge when she suffered a perforated bowel from severe radiation damage, resulting in her living with a stoma. Despite this, Dawn is embracing life and using her experience to urge others to seek medical advice early.
She insists: “I’m fine with my stoma as it saved my life – but I likely wouldn’t need that if I had got checked sooner. So I just really want to spread that message. If something isn’t right – don’t leave it! ”
She emphasizes the importance of regular check-ups, saying, “Even if you feel fine. I only had that symptom and otherwise felt healthy. So visit your GP and get yourself checked out. If someone can see what I’m saying and think, ‘I’ve got that – I’ll get checked’… If I could save one person’s life. That’s what this is for.”
Dawn also expressed immense gratitude towards East Kent Hospitals University for their exceptional care, adding: “I had a fear of hospitals before having cancer so I was really anxious about needing to go regularly – but I very quickly got over it.
“The only thing I felt was safe and reassured that they were going to fix me. I’m so grateful to the team for saving me and for making my cancer journey a positive one.”