WHEN Becki Ward tried but failed to lose weight even after turning to fat jabs, she blamed sheer laziness.
After years of struggling to shift the pounds naturally, the 33-year-old turned to Mounjaro – dubbed the ‘King Kong’ of fat jabs. But when the scales refused to budge, and two other sinister signs emerged, Becki sought medical help.
Weighing 18 stone and 7lbs, she hoped it would spell the end of years trying to shift stubborn fat.
Initially, the jabs curbed Becki’s appetite but within a few months, she was left disappointed by the results – and confused as to why she wasn’t losing as much weight as other jabbers.
It was only after she started experiencing stomach pains and night sweats that she went to the doctors.
Five months of tests later, she was diagnosed with a condition nicknamed “jelly belly”.
Medically called pseudomyxoma peritonei, it causes swelling in the stomach, which is why Becki wasn’t able to lose weight.
While waiting for her surgery, Becki’s mass continued to grow so large it looked like she was “having twins”.
But there was more bad news to come, as Becki also needed some of her organs removed and a full hysterectomy [removal of all reproductive organs].
It plunged her into early menopause, meaning she won’t be able to have children.
Becki, from Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, also lives with the fear that her cancer will return, saying: “My biggest fear is the potential for missing it coming back.
“Lots of symptoms I had were things like IBS symptoms, reflux and heart burn which are kind of normal things to experience.
“Whenever I get IBS type symptoms now, I have to try not to immediately panic or think the worst.
“It makes me feel weird knowing it was potentially growing inside of me for so long, undetected and makes me mistrust my body.”
The trainee education mental health practitioner says she has “always struggled with my weight” so she decided to start taking Mounjaro in October 2024.
Becki was using 7.5mg Mounjaro, the third dose up from the starting dose.
At first, the jabs worked and she lost weight but she became confused when she had only lost a stone over three months.
“It was working well, and supressing my appetite, but then I realised I wasn’t losing weight as fast as everybody else,” she says.
“Some people were losing half a stone a week, and I was only losing one or two pounds in the same amount of time.
“I’ve always struggled, so I thought it must just be me.
“I assumed it wasn’t working because I’m in my 30s, I was lazy, or I was overeating.
“Then I started to get night sweats and stomach pains, I’d read on the news about people getting pancreatitis from Mounjaro and I started panicking and thought that’s what I had.”
Pancreatitis can be a side effect of the jabs.
Last month, the UK medicines watchdog officially recognised that it could pose a small risk of acute pancreatitis.
But, when Becki went to her GP to get blood tests, she was shocked to be told that makers indicative of a tumour flagged up.
Doctors initially thought Becki had ovarian cancer but carried out more tests to be sure.
They discovered a 22cm cyst on Becki’s left ovary, but doctors took five months to finally diagnose her.
She was eventually diagnosed with pseudomyxoma peritonei – a form of cancer so rare that only two hospitals in the UK can treat it.
I was so shocked when I got the diagnosis. The thing I’ve always been most terrified of is getting cancer
It’s characterised by the build up of a jelly-like substance called mucin in the abdominal cavity.
“I was so shocked when I got the diagnosis,” says Becki.
“The thing I’ve always been most terrified of is getting cancer.
“I just wasn’t expecting it, and I immediately thought the worst.”
Symptoms of pseudomyxoma peritonei often don’t appear until a significant amount of mucin has built up, leading doctors to believe that Becki may have had the cancer for five years, without knowing.
Becki was booked for an eight-hour surgery in August 2025.
“My stomach continued to grow, and days before the surgery, I looked like I was about to give birth to twins,” she says.
“By the time they removed the tumour, it was huge, it weighed 12kg.
“I also had a hysterectomy, and was plunged in to early menopause.”
Becki’s surgery ended up taking 11 hours as doctors found that the cancer had spread further than they initially realised.
Symptoms of pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP)
Pseudomyxoma peritonei (PMP) is a rare cancer.
It usually starts in the appendix. But it can start in another part of the bowel, the bladder or the ovaries.
The tumour usually grows slowly, but as it grows, it can spread from where it started into other parts of the tummy area.
PMP cells attach to the layer of tissue that lines the inside of the abdomen called the peritoneum.
The peritoneum covers and protects the organs in the abdomen, such as the bowel. It also makes gaps around the organs, which are called the peritoneal space.
PMP cells make a jelly-like substance called mucin, which collects in the peritoneum. This is why PMP is sometimes called ‘jelly belly’.
PMP may not cause any symptoms in its early stage.
Symptoms of PMP include:
- A gradual increase in waist size
- A hernia (a bulge on the tummy wall)
- Loss of appetite
- Unexplained weight gain
- Tummy pain (abdominal pain)
- Pelvic pain
- A change in bowel habit – for example, diarrhoea, constipation or leaking (incontinence)
Source:Macmillan Cancer Support
Doctors removed Becki’s spleen, her appendix, her gall bladder, her omentum (a fold of fatty tissue in the abdomen) and her peritoneum (a protective layer inside the abdomen).
They also removed her ovaries and womb (full hysterectomy).
Immediately following the surgery, they circulated heated chemotherapy inside her abdomen to kill microscopic cancer cells that can’t be seen during surgery.
The surgery plunged Becki into early menopause, which she felt unsupported with.
Thankfully, Becki and her husband Ed, 36, had already made the decision not to have children before the diagnosis, but she can’t imagine what it would feel like if she wanted to start a family.
She says: “Doctors gave me HRT, which helped a lot, but it’s really hard to find any support or any information for women going through menopause at my age.
“I can imagine it would be devastating for a lot of people as 33 is the age when so many people want to have a baby.”
After five days in intensive care, and a total of two weeks in hospital, Becki was sent home
She is now slowly recovering, and despite struggling with her energy levels, and picking up heavy objects, is mostly doing OK.
Doctors now believe Becki is cancer-free, but she will have to go for regular checks at the doctors for the next 20 years, as the cancer has a 30 per cent chance of recurring.
“I feel very nervous about it coming back in future,” she says.
“There was a night last year when I laid in bed and just prayed for the world to give me 10 more years.
“I wouldn’t ask for anything else if I could just have 10 more years.”