An Australian woman diagnosed with stage 1 ovarian cancer at 37 is using her crafting workshops to urge women to act on unusual symptoms, after she said responding quickly to irregular bleeding saved her life, Business Insider reported.

Natalie May, who lives in Adelaide and is one of Australia’s leading papercraft experts, noticed bright red spotting around 2013 that escalated to full bleeding days after her normal menstrual cycle had finished, she told Business Insider.

It was out of the blue. Within two days, I was going through a pad an hour.

Her primary care doctor referred her for scans after tests showed she had lost a significant amount of blood, according to the report. Imaging found a six-centimeter cyst on her left ovary that doctors suspected was cancerous.

May said she had no family history of cancer and, before her diagnosis, felt she was in the best shape of her life, exercising regularly and losing weight, which she said was in retrospect an early symptom. She had none of the more common signs of ovarian cancer, such as bloating or abdominal pain.

In the two weeks between the scan and her first surgery, the mass nearly doubled in size, she said. Treatment involved surgery to remove the cyst, followed by a radical hysterectomy, two weeks in hospital and months of chemotherapy to reduce the risk that cancer cells remained.

By listening to my body and acting straightaway rather than just pushing it aside, I prevented it from turning into stage two, three, or even four.

Ovarian cancer is highly prone to recurrence after remission, with some studies estimating that up to 70% of patients experience it on average, and the risk rises with later-stage cancers, according to Business Insider.

May, now in her 50s, said she realised during six months of weekly chemotherapy sessions how unusual her case was; the typical ovarian cancer patient is in their early 60s, more than two decades older than she was. Early detection is rare because the disease often spreads before patients seek help.

Early-onset cases of a number of cancers, including ovarian, colon and breast cancer, have become increasingly common among patients in their 20s and 30s, according to the report.

May said the diagnosis took a lasting toll on her mental health, leading to anxiety and depression after treatment, and that advocacy work helped her cope. By 2018 she was speaking to audiences about her experience, and she now raises awareness through her scrapbooking classes and workshops.

There are so many different things put down to ‘just being a woman.’ That’s bullshit, May said. She added: “You really need to know what’s normal for your own body.”

May said many women put others before themselves and ignore symptoms, telling workshop attendees: “The thing we forget is that we can’t look after other people unless we look after ourselves first.”