WAGGA WAGGA — Australian netball player Sophie Fawns, 22, has moved from Sydney to Manchester to begin her first season with Manchester Thunder, using her platform to advocate for greater awareness of ovarian cancer after her mother's hidden battle with the disease. Fawns grew up as one of four sisters in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, and lost her mother, Maureen Fawns, who died at the age of 52 the day after being taken to hospital — one day after Sophie's 18th birthday.

Maureen Fawns had an ovarian cyst that she delayed removing. When the cyst burst, doctors discovered a cancer cell. Maureen told her daughters the diagnosis was not serious. "Honestly, I'm even before stage one," she told them. "Chemotherapy was just to be on the safe side," she said. She did not tell her daughters that her ovarian cancer was terminal. "I don't want anyone to treat me differently. So I don't want to tell anyone," Maureen said.

Even while undergoing treatment, Maureen continued taking her daughter to netball training after the family moved to Sydney. The pair made 300-mile drives between Wagga Wagga and Sydney so Fawns could train as a partner for the NSW Swifts in Suncorp Super Netball. In 2022, Fawns moved to Sydney to study neuroscience at university and play as a first-teamer for the Swifts. Last year, she struggled for court time and briefly considered a future outside the sport before securing her move to Manchester Thunder.

Fawns has spoken publicly about ovarian cancer awareness. "People are so quick to shut down the conversation and think of it as quite taboo and they don't want to talk about it, and I'm not quite sure why," she said. "The more you talk about it, the less taboo it becomes and the more it sparks that conversation," Fawns said.

Ovarian cancer is often diagnosed at a late stage, and its symptoms — which include persistent bloating, difficulty eating or feeling full quickly, frequent or urgent urination, and pain from the stomach to the top of the thighs — are not always obvious. The disease mostly affects women over the age of 50 but can affect anyone with ovaries, according to the NHS. Only one in three women diagnosed with ovarian cancer survive more than 10 years, according to Ovarian Cancer Action, and the disease causes about 4,000 deaths each year among women in the United Kingdom.