AS a highly-qualified nurse, Noeline Young knows that ovarian cancer is relatively rare. And yet she has had far more experience of it than most.

For not only does she specialise in gynaeoncology, but just eight months after her daughter started treatment for the disease, Noeline, received the same diagnosis.

She was working at Poole Hospital at the time when her daughter Hannah, who was just 19, was told she had ovarian cancer in August 2000.

And although she came into contact with the disease virtually every day at work, Noeline didn’t think that daughter’s regular stomach pains and vomiting over the previous two years had anything to do with ovarian cancer.

“She was so young and our GP kept dismissing her symptoms as Irritable Bowel Syndrome,” Noeline explains.

“She would wake up in the middle of the night in excruciating pain and then in the morning would be okay again. And so right up to the point of Hannah having a second ultra sound scan, I'd never thought that her symptoms were anything to do with ovarian cancer.”

However, during one particularly harrowing episode, Noeline decided to call out her GP and within a week Hannah was booked in for surgery.

The disease was one step behind the most advanced stage and Hannah had both of her ovaries removed and part of her small bowel and bladder.

Three weeks later she started chemotherapy.

Happily Hannah, who is now 31, completed the treatment and has not looked back since.

However, while organising a celebratory end-of-chemo holiday for the family in West Africa, Noeline started to have her own health worries. She had experienced lower abdominal discomfort for three months, with abnormal menstrual bleeding and urinary tract infections.

“I thought it was all related to stress, but when I told my GP, because of my history, she sent me straight for a scan. It showed that I had a cyst on my ovary.”

Fortunately for Noeline her cancer was caught at a much earlier stage so she did not need chemotherapy. Two days after returning from holiday she had a hysterectomy.

Noeline, who has also been clear of the disease since the treatment, now uses her experience to help improve services for cancer patients.

She is project manager of the National Cancer Survivorship Initiative and chair of the charity Ovacome.

This month the charity is running a Teal Tips campaign to raise awareness of ovarian cancer.

The idea is that by wearing this shade of nail polish it will spark conversations about ovarian cancer. Noeline adds: “It is quite an unusual shade and is proving to be a good conversation starter to help raise awareness.”

Remember to keep the BEAT

BEAT is an easy to remember acronym of the main symptoms of ovarian cancer:
B is for bloating that does not come and go
E is for eating less and feeling fuller quicker
A is for abdominal pain
T is for telling your GP

During March, Barry M , the nail polish supplier will make a £1.25 donation to Ovacome on all online purchases of its £3.99 Watermelon Gelly Hi-Shine Nail Paint made on its website barrym.com