I left my business to sail around the world but an everyday symptom led to a devastating diagnosis caused by a common medicine – and I almost left it too late to survive

Corinne Truslove was feeling burned out after 25 years of working a 9-to-5 corporate job when, at age 48, she decided to put away her laptop and sail around the world — but little did she know that an impending cancer diagnosis would leave her would get into trouble. plan.

The now 52-year-old from Western Australia, affectionately known as Cozzy, told FEMAIL she bought a boat with her partner in May 2020, despite neither of them having ever sailed before.

“We had our own events company – we organized food and entertainment for children’s parties, a bit like a traveling food circus, so we knew we could work from anywhere if we had our laptops,” she said.

Western Australia Health requires all residents turning 50 to have a bowel cancer screening. When Cozzy sent in her sample, she noted other problems she was having with her stomach, such as cramps and abdominal distension.

Those minor symptoms turned out to be the sign of something much more sinister: Cozzy was soon diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer, requiring surgeons to remove an 8cm tumor along with 50 percent of her liver.

Cozzy and Mitch had sailed around Australia and all the way to Indonesia for two years before she started feeling strange.

The couple regularly posts vlogs on their YouTube channel, Sailing ocean life.

“I thought maybe my cramps were IBS or a result of not taking care of myself and my poor diet,” Cozzy said.

‘But after my sample results came back, my doctor wanted me to do a colonoscopy as soon as possible, and I was terrified.

“Not just because of the thought of cancer, but I have never had such a major medical procedure.”

During the colonoscopy, 14 polyps were found, these are small clumps of cells in the mucous membrane of the colon, which can eventually develop into colon cancer.

Cozzy’s doctor wanted her to have another colonoscopy to get a better look, but she soon went back on the boat. She didn’t go back to get it done until she turned 51.

She said she kept postponing the appointment because it was not a high priority.

The couple went to the Montebello Islands to visit some friends, which poses a radiation risk because the country was a British nuclear bomb testing site in the 1950s.

Cozzy and Mitch couldn’t buy food there, so all they had for the month was what they brought with them.

‘We ran out of fresh food and were left with instant noodles, which I hate. But I loved being on the boat and being with my friends, so I kept going.”

She added: ‘I had rescheduled the second colonoscopy so many times that I needed another referral from my GP, and then I called her about three months later.

“She asked me how I was feeling, and I admitted I was a little bloated. I thought it was because of the junk I ate on board, but I just wasn’t used to it.

“My doctor scheduled me for an ultrasound just to be sure, and I went in the following week.”

Cozzy recalled casually chatting with the sonographer as she scanned the left side of her abdomen.

But as soon as she moved the probe to the right, the technician’s face turned pale.

She instructed Cozzy to sit in the waiting room while she spoke to the doctor, but what she didn’t know was that Cozzy could hear the duo talking from outside.

‘I heard them talking about a lesion – and they kept saying the number ‘six’. I didn’t know if it was millimeters, centimeters or inches, but I tried to look it up on my phone.’

The doctors revealed it was a 6cm lesion, but weren’t sure if it was on her liver or lungs, so Cozzy had to go back for a PET scan and another follow-up appointment.

Cozzy spoke to a surgeon after they confirmed in January 2023 that the mass was on her liver, and that they would remove it in March due to pre-made plans.

‘My partner’s sister, her husband and their children were coming to visit us. We were going sailing, so I couldn’t have the operation until afterwards.’

The months flew by and soon it was time for the masses to come out. Cozzy wasn’t too worried; the doctor originally said that since the mass was 6 cm, they only needed to remove 19 percent of her liver.

But that didn’t happen in the end.

Instead, the surgeons discovered that the mass was actually larger than expected (8 cm) and required them to remove 50 percent of Cozzy’s liver.

“I woke up in the intensive care unit terrified,” she recalls. “The cancer had grown from my liver and attached itself to my diaphragm, and it was lining my lungs.”

She came very close to developing lung cancer – a diagnosis that would have been fatal.

When Cozzy’s results came back, doctors told her she was developing cancer because she had been on birth control pills for too long and the extra estrogen in her body was causing cancer cells to develop.

“When they found it, they told me it had been growing slowly for fifteen years.

“I didn’t have much of a problem with it, but after it got to the size it was, it starts to get a little more aggressive.

“If we had waited weeks longer to get it out, it would have been much more serious, and it scares me to think what could have happened.”

Cozzy was amazed at the fact that if she hadn’t gone for the colonoscopy, she might never have known until it was too late.

The mass was the result of well-differentiated cancer cells – which look and behave more like the normal cells in the tissue in which they started growing.

However, tumors with well-differentiated cancer cells tend to grow and spread slowly – and in Cozzy’s case, that had taken fifteen years.

Although she didn’t need chemotherapy or radiation, Cozzy had to take it easy and rest because of how much of her liver needed to regenerate.

She will need to have an MRI every three months for the foreseeable future to make sure the cancer doesn’t come back.

“It scared me a lot,” she admitted. ‘Every time I feel a little unwell I get scared. But I have to remind myself that I recently had an MRI, I’m in the clear. Other diseases also exist.

‘The doctor was confident he had removed all the cancer and took swabs of the area around the incision – which came back with no cancer cells.

“But it’s hard to be sure they have everything when you’ve been through that. It’s a little scary, but I’m doing my best to do my due diligence.”

Cozzy immediately went back to sailing after her surgeons cleared everything up for her.

In January 2023, the couple had to return to work full-time, but they are currently building a company that produces high-quality sailing equipment.

“We really just want to get back out there and tour the world,” she said. ‘We want to see as much as possible by sailing boat and cruising – it’s a great lifestyle.’