‘I'm Lucky To Still Be Alive!'

Nicole Graney became the youngest Australian woman to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer – at just 12 years old.

- Melissa Field

Halfway through year seven in 2010, Sydney schoolgirl Nicole felt a hard lump in her tummy after she fainted at school and developed back pain and a urinary tract infection, so her worried mum Karen took her to the doctor.

“I had an ultrasound and then an MRI scan in the following days,” says Nicole, who’s now 20. “They showed up a 16cm mass on my right ovary. I was booked in for surgery at Liverpool Hospital the very next day.”

At 12, Nicole was more interested in mucking around with her new Ingleburn High School friends, playing Angry Birds and listening to Delta Goodrem and Kylie Minogue on her iPod Touch than worrying too much about her health – so the burden of fear about her condition fell mostly on her mother.

“Mum’s a radiologist and knew a little bit about what my potential prognosis could be,” says Nicole. “She burst into tears when she saw the lump on my scans.”

YOUNGEST EVER

Nicole’s surgery removed a solid tumour from her right ovary and fallopian tube. In the week between her ultrasound scan and surgery, the tumour had grown to 20cm.

Two weeks after her surgery, doctors confirmed that Nicole had ovarian cancer – and was Australia’s youngest ever patient with the condition.