Thirty-four-year-old Morgan Bellock had simply decided to go and get her eggs frozen. She wasn't too sure of if she'd be having children anytime soon, and wanted to save her eggs just in case. So she went through the process thinking of the importance of the decision she had made.
But what she didn't expect to discover or receive that day was a diagnosis of aggressive ovarian cancer. “It was a big shock to me,” the now 40-year-old woman told Today.com in an interview. “I didn’t know there was a giant ovarian cyst just sitting on one of my ovaries.”
It was 2017 when Morgan made the decision to freeze her eggs. She was, at the time, dating someone who had a job across the country. “I thought to myself, if this is my person, our timeline is going to be significantly pushed back. And for me, it just felt better looking into freezing my eggs,” she shared.
“I was worried that two or three years would pass.” But not everyone in her family and among her friend group agreed with her decision. “I remember being met with a lot of skepticism. I had a feeling in my gut, and ultimately I’m glad I did, and I feel like everyone questioning my position felt really bad about it.”
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Part of the egg-freezing process requires the patient to get an ultrasound. During this scan is when the doctor noticed that Morgan had a mass on her ovary. The initially thought it to merely be an ovarian cyst.
After getting some tests done, it was revealed that they cyst was filled with blood or other solid material. So the doctor, fearing that the cyst would grow or rupture if she started taking the medication for harvesting her eggs, suggested that she have surgery.
“When they did the surgery, they removed the cyst. But then they also tested something that was hiding behind it, which was the cancerous tumor that none of the scans had shown," she explained. It was a stage 1 teratoma, which is a type of tumor that can be made up of several types of different tissue, including hair, muscle, and bone.
Doctors say that if they hadn't found the cancer at the time that they did, Morgan could have gone on for years experiencing no symptoms, allowing the disease to advance. “It was good news in some ways that we had caught it so soon, and we could treat it,” she shared.
“There’s a very real way that I could have not been here today, which is wild to think about,” she added. “I didn’t have any symptoms.” Due to the surgery, Morgan had to wait to freeze her eggs. She was allowed to begin the process again in 2018, and by that time she and her boyfriend had broken up. She decided to still go the course, even if alone.
“I only had one ovary, so as you can imagine, my desire to do it increased even more,” she explained. “It also felt even more disheartening, in terms of what the results were going to be.” After several cycles, she ended up harvesting 10 eggs.
*Disclaimer: The advice on LittleThings.com is not a substitute for consultation with a medical professional or treatment for a specific condition. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat a health problem without consulting a qualified professional. Please contact your health-care provider with questions and concerns.
