‘I feel like it never ends’: Natasha Van Eck’s monumental health struggles

A gynaecologist told mum-of-two Natasha Van Eck her uterus was measuring 24 weeks pregnant. Four months later, she needed urgent surgery.

Natasha Van Eck has battled breast cancer twice and recently was forced to undergo an abdominal hysterectomy. Picture: Ben Clark

A Woodcroft woman has undergone an abdominal hysterectomy after doctors discovered a fibroid the size of a 24 week pregnancy in her uterus.

Natasha Van Eck’s uterus weighed a staggering 1.3 kilograms – a uterus usually weighing only 70 grams – following the mammoth surgery.

Ms Van Eck mentioned to her doctor a lump she felt in her stomach earlier this year.

She went for a CT which confirmed the large fibroid and was referred to a gynaecologist and for a MRI.

“I met with the gynaecologist and she’s like ‘your uterus is measuring 24 weeks pregnant’,” she said.

“After that … it became like I was pregnant … my body looked like I was pregnant, I had a visible bump and it was just really bizarre and really painful.

“Suddenly within the space of four months I became quite aware of it.”

Natasha Van Eck said she looked 24 weeks pregnant prior to doctors removing the fibroid. Picture: Supplied

Natasha Van Eck when she was battling breast cancer in 2006. Picture: Supplied

The 42-year-old underwent surgery on May 16, but it wasn’t the first surgery Ms Van Eck has endured.

Unfortunately, Ms Van Eck said she has been subjected to unrelenting health struggles for most of her adult life since being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2006 when she was only 24.

“I’m tired of how every year something else comes up,” she said.

“I feel like it never ends.”

When Ms Van Eck found a lump on her breast 18 years ago she didn’t want to believe it was cancer.

Natasha Van Eck was the youngest person in the cancer clinic while she was undergoing treatment at the time. Picture: Supplied

Natasha Van Eck while in hospital. Picture: Supplied

A doctor told her she would need the lump biopsied and she put it off. Finally she had it biopsied and the results came back with the frightening news – it was cancerous and the then-24-year-old would need a partial mastectomy, lymph node removal, chemotherapy, radiotherapy and drug therapy.

“I was the youngest person in the clinic,” she said.

“Not something I was expecting, I don’t have a family history of it.”

Luckily after months of treatment she did go into remission. However her cancer returned in 2018.

In 2018 the breast cancer returned. Picture: Ben Clark

“It was devastating,” she said.

“I’d made it so far … I’d cruise in and out of this clinic and I was fine and fine and then they could see something.

“I’d been in remission for so long.

“I had two kids.

“It was hard.”

The second time round Ms Van Eck had a full mastectomy and a latissimus dorsi flap which is a breast reconstruction using the fat and skin from a patients back.

“It’s a very big and intense operation … took a long time to heal from that, I didn’t need chemotherapy or anything because they felt that was significant enough to get all of the tissue out,” she said.

Cancer wasn’t the only health struggle of Ms Van Eck’s, in 2022 and 2023 Ms Van Eck contracted cellulitis – a serious, bacterial skin infection – on her chest and stomach.

Due to having her lymph nodes removed during her cancer treatment, having cellulitis triggered lymphoedema – a condition which resulted in Ms Van Eck’s left arm and hand swelling

Natasha Van Eck's swollen hand from cellulitis. Picture: Supplied

Natasha Van Eck following her gallbladder removal surgery, doctors removed a gallstone. Picture: Supplied

Ms Van Eck is forced to wear compression garments on her hand and arm all the time to cope which is difficult while working as an aged care worker as she is constantly washing her hands and dealing with people.

“I didn’t anticipate after having this operating in 2006 in that 2024 that I’d be dealing with a side effect,” she said.

“It will never go away. It will never go back to normal.”

Ms Van Eck has also had her gallbladder removed in 2022 in an emergency surgery, as well as cyst from her ovaries in 2020 and corrective breast surgery in 2021 following 2018 reconstruction following her 2018 breast cancer relapse, as well as a range of gynaecological surgeries.

She also lives with a panic disorder.

If you’d like to donate to Natasha, you can here.

Originally published as ‘I feel like it never ends’: Natasha Van Eck’s monumental health struggles