At 28, the possibility of ovarian cancer is remote but not impossible

It was the first Monday morning of December. A dry and windy morning. The usually green hills overlooking our large referral hospital had turned brown, reflecting the morning sun in a somewhat desolate mirage. Not a drop of rain had descended on this part of the world in six months, it was the driest. That morning found myself in the gynecology ward, reviewing patients, giving treatment plans, completing abortions, both natural and induced, and listening to the frantic rage of the wind as it threatened to deroof our hospital.

Demetrius, a 28-year-old female, was rushed into our ward. She was admitted directly to the ward because the usual admitting process was slow on that day, and the theatre was occupied with another case at its tail end. She came with a distended abdomen and severe abdominal pain. Her belly was swollen and still. At that instance, the 5Fs of abdominal distention flashed through my mind in what seemed like an impulse. These are fetus, feces, fluid, fat, and fatal growth. Demetrius told me there was no possibility of her being pregnant, she had seen her periods just a week before, and the pregnancy test was negative. No fat could be that painful, and most definitely, it couldn't be fecal matter; hers was likely a fatal growth or fluid or fatal growth with fluid.