Ovarian cancer: 'If it was my fertility or my life, I was going to choose my life'

As a young woman in her 30s, Christina McCartney never associated her back pain and other symptoms with ovarian cancer. When a malignant tumour was discovered, she had to get a hysterectomy, ruling out the chance of having children

Christina McCartney photographed at her home in Moynalty, County Meath. Photos: Barry Cronin

Pensions administrator Christina McCartney wasn’t thinking of ovarian cancer when she got really bad back pain in August 2021. She put it down to working from home during the pandemic.

She thought her abdominal pain and bloating were due to bad periods, eating rubbish and grieving her mum, who’d died just nine months earlier from osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer.